This week I would like to discuss my plan to bring about the biggest boost in affordable homes for a generation - with social and council housing at the core of our plan for secure homes.

The Tories have failed to build enough affordable and social homes, meaning safe, secure, affordable housing is no longer the foundation on which people can rely.

Developers are also all too often able to wriggle out of their commitments on social and affordable housing in new developments. 

Labour will start rebuilding the dream of a safe, secure home that the Tories have taken a sledgehammer to.

We’ll make developers honour their commitments in full to provide new social and affordable homes; get every penny of unspent government grant out the door; and give a commitment to local authorities and housing associations to deliver certainty and stability over time.

Affordable, social and council houses aren’t just a social good, they are critical to boosting economic growth. 

They are quicker to build and occupy, meaning the market moves faster and grows quicker. Boosting housebuilding will also create reliable, well-paid, and highly skilled construction jobs across the country.

Our first priority will be to strengthen existing mechanisms, rescuing a system that has been broken under the Tories.

n We’ll strengthen the rules to prevent developers wriggling out of their responsibilities, speeding up new social and affordable housing. 

We will do this by empowering councils to negotiate better deals for their communities, limiting developers’ rights to object to new social and affordable housing and hold developers to account.

n Where the Tories have snatched billions from affordable housing, Labour will unlock government grants to deliver new homes. 

We will do this by making the Affordable Housing Programme more flexible, freeing up money currently stuck in the pipelines, so that every penny goes out the door - to where it’s needed in our communities.

n We’ll give local authorities and housing associations certainty and stability over time, so they have the confidence and security to invest in affordable, social and council housing stock. 

We will actively champion social and affordable housing to meet housing need, support the market to grow, and ending the Tories’ approach of last-minute unplanned changes that wreak chaos and instability.