One Million New Social Homes

Britain has a housing problem that has been allowed to build for decades.

Too few homes are being built. Social housing supply has failed to keep pace with need. Councils face enormous pressures, families remain on waiting lists, temporary accommodation costs taxpayers billions, and many younger people increasingly believe that a secure home is beyond their reach.

Manifesto 1.0 proposes an ambitious response: build one million new social homes over ten years — an average of 100,000 additional homes every year. This is deliberately ambitious. It will require substantial investment, long-term political commitment and major improvements to the way Britain plans, finances and delivers housing. Manifesto 1.0 does not pretend otherwise.

This is not simply a building target. Announcing that Britain should build a million homes is easy. Actually creating the financial, legal, planning and construction environment capable of delivering them is much harder. Britain must tackle the reasons why housing construction has stagnated in the first place.

The million-home programme should therefore form one part of a wider housing strategy rather than operate in isolation.

Britain’s housing shortage was not created in one year and it will not be solved in one year. But that is not an argument for continuing with inadequate ambition. A ten-year programme provides time to expand construction capacity, train workers, reform planning, assemble land, develop infrastructure and create a stable investment pipeline. The scale is substantial because the problem is substantial.

Long-term low-interest finance: local authorities and housing associations cannot deliver a programme of this scale if they are expected to finance every development through short-term or prohibitively expensive borrowing. Government would make long-duration, low-interest capital finance available to eligible local authorities and regulated housing associations for approved social housing development. The objective is not to give councils unlimited free money — it is to provide patient, affordable capital for viable long-term housing assets. Loans could be structured over long repayment periods appropriate to housing infrastructure and supported by predictable rental income from completed homes. The precise interest rate, maturity and subsidy arrangements would need to reflect government borrowing costs, fiscal conditions and project risk. The principle, however, is straightforward: public bodies building assets that may serve communities for generations should have access to financing designed around the life of those assets.

A legal and financial framework: the programme would operate within a statutory funding framework rather than through unrestricted transfers of public money. Finance should be released in stages against agreed development milestones where appropriate. This protects taxpayers while giving councils and housing associations the certainty required to plan substantial long-term development programmes.

Councils and housing associations: delivery should not depend upon one central government department attempting to build one million homes itself. Britain already has institutions with housing expertise, local knowledge, land holdings and development experience — local authorities, regulated housing associations, joint ventures between public and regulated housing bodies, appropriately structured development partnerships, and other eligible not-for-profit housing providers where suitable. Local delivery allows housing programmes to reflect different regional needs rather than imposing precisely the same development model everywhere.

Government support must be disciplined: long-term loans ultimately expose the public balance sheet to risk, so the programme must have proper controls. Cheap finance should support good projects. It should not remove the obligation to demonstrate that public money is being used responsibly.

Bring in additional investment: government finance should not be the only source of capital. Manifesto 1.0 would seek to crowd additional investment into the housing programme where that investment is compatible with long-term affordability and public value. Private capital should supplement the public programme rather than determine its social purpose. Contracts and partnerships must protect affordability, housing standards and taxpayer value.

Match charitable contributions: Britain has charities, foundations and philanthropic organisations already working on homelessness, supported housing and community development. Where eligible charitable organisations contribute funding directly towards approved social housing projects, government should be able to provide matched funding within defined limits, subject to clear eligibility and anti-abuse rules. Every pound of legitimate charitable capital attracted into an approved scheme is a pound that can potentially increase the programme’s reach. Matching should be targeted, capped and conditional upon projects meeting the same standards expected elsewhere in the programme.

What should be built: a million homes should not mean a million identical properties. Different communities require different types of housing, and local need should help determine the mix.

Build communities, not just housing units: housing cannot be planned independently of the infrastructure required to support it. The objective should be functioning communities — not simply hitting a numerical housing target.

Planning reform matters: a government could make billions of pounds available for housebuilding and still fail if viable developments remain trapped indefinitely within a dysfunctional planning system. That is why this proposal should be read alongside the forthcoming Manifesto 1.0 proposal on Planning Reform, which proposes a national housing and infrastructure test and stronger central intervention where necessary. The detailed planning reforms belong in that proposal rather than being duplicated here. But the connection is fundamental: you cannot promise dramatically more homes while refusing to confront the systems that prevent those homes from being built.

Private housebuilding also matters: one million additional social homes should not replace private housebuilding — Britain needs both. A separate Manifesto 1.0 proposal will examine Private Housebuilding Incentives designed to make building additional homes more financially attractive. The objective is a broader revival of housing supply across different tenures.

Skills and construction capacity: somebody has to build these homes. The programme should be coordinated with apprenticeships, technical education, workforce planning and modern methods of construction. A ten-year programme provides an advantage here: a predictable decade-long pipeline gives employers confidence to recruit, train, invest and expand capacity.

Cost: this is an expensive proposal, and Manifesto 1.0 should say that plainly. The Budget 3.0 framework provides an indicative mature annual programme envelope of approximately £20–£25 billion per year for the social housing programme. That figure represents a programme-level fiscal envelope rather than an assumption that government directly pays the entire construction cost of every home. The gross value of construction generated by the programme could be considerably larger than the annual direct expenditure scored against government budgets.

Economic effects: a programme of this scale would have wider economic consequences. But if construction capacity does not increase alongside spending, additional demand could simply push up land, labour and material prices. That is another reason why the programme must be phased over ten years rather than attempted overnight.

Measuring success: success should not be measured solely by money announced. Government should publish regular programme data, and the target is homes completed and occupied — not press releases, funding announcements or planning applications.

The cost of building social housing should not be considered without examining the cost of failing to build it. Housing shortages create costs elsewhere: government and councils already spend substantial sums dealing with temporary accommodation, homelessness, housing benefit pressures, emergency placements, poor-quality accommodation, family instability and the social consequences of insecure housing.

Unlike many forms of government expenditure, housebuilding also creates a physical asset with a potentially very long useful life. That does not make the investment free. It does mean the debate should consider both sides of the ledger.

One million homes. Ten years. 100,000 a year. The figure should be tested. The financing should be challenged. The delivery model should be scrutinised. And if better mechanisms can achieve the objective more efficiently, Manifesto 1.0 should adopt them.

The question: can Britain build one million additional social homes over ten years by giving councils and housing associations access to patient, affordable finance — while reforming the wider system that has allowed housebuilding to stagnate? This is one of the largest investment commitments in Manifesto 1.0. It deserves scrutiny proportionate to its scale. Let’s test it.

Devolution note: housing is devolved. The detailed council-lending and housing-finance mechanisms described here are most directly applicable to England. Equivalent implementation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would require agreement with, or delivery through, the respective devolved governments and institutions.