Hot Topics: Housing and Accommodation

As part of our campaign to encourage students to TURN UP AND VOTE in the upcoming General Election, we’re researching party manifestos on topics that matter to you based on the Student Manifesto. This is to ensure you can feel informed when making your vote. 

None of the parties specifically mentioned student housing but here is a summary of some of their aims for housing that may in turn impact you as a student: 

Conservative 

• Pass the Renter Reform Bill including banning no-fault evictions  
• Build 1.6m new homes over five years, prioritising urban and brownfield development and raising density levels in inner London 
• Help first-time buyers with a new Help to Buy scheme requiring a 5% deposit 

Green Party 

• Provide 150,000 new social homes a year and require new homes to be built to the highest efficiency  
• Allow local authorities to introduce rent controls and give tenants more rights, including an end to no-fault evictions 
• Fund a local authority-led programme to improve insulation and install low-carbon heating systems such as heat pumps in homes 

Labour 

• Reform the planning system and build 1.5m new homes over 5 years 
• Ban no-fault evictions and empower renters to challenge rent increases 
• Help first-time buyers with mortgage guarantee scheme and letting first-time buyers buy housing before investors in new developments 

Liberal Democrats 

• Propose banning no-fault evictions and make 3-year tenancies a default 
• Aim to build 380,000 new homes a year, including 150,000 social homes 
• Introduce a 10-year emergency upgrade programme to make homes warmer and cheaper 

Reform UK 

• Scrap the Renters Reform Bill and improve the monitoring, appeals and enforcement process for renters instead 
• Prioritise local people and those who have paid into the system for social housing, not foreign nationals 
• Encourage more people to become landlords by scrapping tax changes introduced from 2017-21, known as Section 24 

Want to find out more about party manifestos and what your local candidates are saying? Use these tools: 

• Find your local candidates 
• Understand parties based on policies 
• Election Fact Checker 
• Party Manifestos: Conservative, Green, Labour, LibDems, Reform UK