Labour floats radical housing policy as election looms
Labour is mulling a radical new housing scheme in which first-time buyers could potentially purchase their property for less than the market price.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the plan, first floated by Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, would disrupt the rising buy-to-let market and stop landlords making “a fast buck” at the expense of their tenants and communities.
“You’d want to establish what is a reasonable price, you can establish that and then that becomes the right to buy,” he told the Financial Times. “You (the government) set the criteria. I don’t think it’s complicated.”
He added: “We’ve got a large number of landlords who are not maintaining these properties and are causing overcrowding and these problems.”
Today Corbyn set out more of Labour’s plans as he called for an early election.
Speaking from Salford, the opposition leader said: “Labour will extend democracy to the workplace, through collective bargaining, workers on boards and our Inclusive Ownership Funds, which will transfer billions of pounds of pounds into the hands of workers the real wealth creators.
“And, when I say Labour will invest £500 billion, that’s not just an abstract number on a financial spreadsheet. It stands for an economic transformation that will change your daily life… With a serious industrial strategy and a radical Labour government the economy can be a tool in our hands, rather than the master of our fate.”
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