Gideon Amos

Absolutely. They have no recollection of the past, they are blind to the experience of their own Government, and they are only asking, urging and pleading us to look forward, not back at their own record. In Taunton and Wellington, there are countless examples of folk who are unable to afford a home of their own. Rosanna, a qualified solicitor, has been living with her parents for over six years because she is unable to afford a new home. What is needed is a far bigger focus on building the council and social rent homes that are needed by our country. The Liberal Democrats propose to raise the number from the Government’s target of 20,000 per year to 150,000 per year. There should be less reliance on a few big house builder developers, whose interest, perfectly reasonably, is in increasing profits and the value of their land, rather than in making their products cheaper—why would they?—or in necessarily increasing the amount of housing supply. Less reliance on the big developers and more council and social rent homes delivered by public funding would mean that there would be no need for the Government to cut the affordable housing requirements in London, as they did last week. Our manifesto provided £6 billion a year over five years to begin to achieve not just the 90,000 social rent homes that Shelter and the National Housing Federation say that we need, but our manifesto target of 150,000 homes. A decent home should not be for just the most vulnerable and excluded; all working people should be able to have a home with a decent rent. Coupled with that, we need new routes to be available for people to get on to the home ownership ladder and a new generation of rent-to-own homes, where renters can gain ownership over 30 years.