I know how important the issue of housing is to residents across the Borough and everybody rightly deserves to live in a safe, good quality and secure home. Throughout my time as the Member of Parliament I have personally helped many constituents who were facing housing problems and homelessness and I know the huge toll that insecure housing can take on a person's wellbeing.

I have supported the significant action the Conservative Government has taken in the last Parliament to support those facing homelessness. There is of course still more to do, which is why I am standing on a manifesto committed to more housebuilding and to ending rough sleeping, so that everybody has somewhere they are able to call home.

Rebecca Harris

The Conservative Party will deliver a secure future for local communities by giving more people a better chance of living where they would like – near their family, friends and their job. Everybody deserves a safe, decent and secure home and we have the plans to deliver it.

We have built over 2.5 million homes since 2010, including meeting our commitment to deliver 1 million homes in the last Parliament. Home ownership rates plummeted under the last Labour Government so we cannot afford to go back to square one.

Conservative Government Action:

• Rough sleeping levels were 18% lower in 2023 compared to the peak in 2017 and 9% lower than they were in 2019 before the pandemic.
• We have provided an unprecedented £2.4 billion to tackle homelessness and to implement the ‘Ending Rough Sleeping for Good’ Strategy.
• Delivering almost 700,000 since 2010—and scaling this up through the £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, which will provide 180,000 new homes, 50% at discounted rent and 50% of affordable ownership including a majority of shared ownership.
• Number of non-decent homes down by 2 million since 2010. The Levelling Up White Paper set a mission for the number of non-decent rented homes to have fallen by 50% with the biggest improvements in the lowest performing areas by 2030.
• Fully implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 by placing duties on local authorities to intervene through an enhanced prevention duty meaning that housing authorities are required to work with people to prevent homelessness at an earlier stage and a duty for those who are already homeless to support households for 56 days to relieve their homelessness by helping secure accommodation. Over 740,000 households have been prevented from becoming homeless or supported into settled accommodation since the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act.
• Since 2021, we have invested £1.6 billion through the Homelessness Prevention Grant, giving councils the funding they need to prevent homelessness and help more people sooner, including young homeless people.
• £435 million Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme - Supported up to 6,000 rough sleepers into longer term accommodation. Once in their new home, rough sleepers have been supported by specialist staff to access the help they need, whether that be mental health and substance abuse problems or moving towards training and work.
• In 2022, we announced the £200 million Single Homelessness Accommodation Programme. This is delivering over 2,000 homes and support services for people sleeping rough or at risk of sleeping rough, including young people. Of these, over 650 are specifically for young people sleeping rough or at risk of sleeping rough.
• In April 2024 we restored the local housing allowance rate to the 30th percentile. This means that 1.6 million low-income households will be on average £800 a year better off, making it more affordable for families on benefits to rent properties in the private sector.
• In February 2024, we updated the Homelessness Code of Guidance to make it clear that temporary accommodation is unsuitable for a family with children under 2 if there is not enough space for a cot and that housing authorities should support families to secure a cot where needed.
• Introduced the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, which strengthens the Regulator of Social Housing to carry out regular inspections of the largest social housing providers and the power to issue unlimited fines to rogue social landlords and gives powers to set strict time limits for social landlords to address hazards such as damp and mould.

We need to build more good quality homes and so the Conservatives will deliver 1.6 million homes in England in the next Parliament and our Manifesto makes it clear we can do this by:

• Abolishing the legacy EU ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules to immediately unlock the building of 100,000 new homes with local consent, with developers required in law to pay a one-off mitigation fee so there is no net additional pollution.
• Delivering a record number of homes each year on brownfield land in urban areas. We will provide a fast track route through the planning system for new homes on previously developed land in the 20 largest cities. The design codes will mean this allows for gentle densification of urban areas, with new family homes and mansion-blocks on treelined streets built in the local character. We will look at extending ‘full expensing’ to the delivery of brownfield housing.
• Supporting local and smaller builders by requiring councils to set land aside for them and lifting Section 106 burdens on more smaller sites, while ruling out Labour’s proposed ‘community right to appeal’ which would bring the planning system to its knees.
• Making sure local authorities use the new Infrastructure Levy to deliver the GP surgeries, roads and other local infrastructure needed to support homes. We will not allow these funds to be spent on community projects that bear no relation to support for new homes.
• Renewing the Affordable Homes Programme that will deliver homes of all tenures and focus on regenerating and improving housing estates.
• Retaining our cast-iron commitment to protect the Green Belt from uncontrolled development, while ensuring more homes get built where it makes sense, like in inner cities. Our national planning protections mean there is never any top-down requirement for councils to remove Green Belt protection and these will remain in place.
• We will not increase the number of council tax bands, undertake an expensive council tax revaluation or cut council tax discounts, as Labour is currently doing in Wales.
• We will maintain Private Residence Relief so that people’s homes are protected from Capital Gains Tax and we will not increase the rate or level of Stamp Duty to support homeowners. To further support homeowners, we will introduce a two-year temporary Capital Gains Tax relief for landlords who sell to their existing tenants.
• The Conservative Party will protect the laws that ensure the Right to Buy discounts rise with inflation and fight any plan by local authorities to abolish the Right to Buy altogether.

In the last Parliament, the Conservative Government passed the Leasehold and Freehold Act 2024 which makes it easier and cheaper for leaseholders to buy their freehold, increase standard lease extension terms to 990 years for houses and flats and provide greater transparency over service charges. The Act also removes barriers for leaseholders to challenge their landlords’ unreasonable charges at Tribunal.

We will now complete the process of leasehold reform, to improve the lives of over four million leaseholders by capping ground rents at £250, reducing them to peppercorn over time. We will end the misuse of forfeiture so leaseholders don’t lose their property and capital unfairly and make it easier to take up commonhold.

The Conservatives are committed to passing a Renters Reform Bill that will deliver fairness in the rental market for landlords and renters alike. We will deliver the court reforms necessary to fully abolish Section 21.

The Conservative Government has made huge progress in building the homes we need and will continue with our plans to end rough sleeping and prevent people from ending up on the streets in the first place. Only a vote for the Conservative Party can build on the strong progress we have made.