Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps says Labour has given up on its pledge to increase home ownership.

As Labour published a policy document on housing, they have dropped their pledge to get one million more people to own their home as it "compounds inequality".

"Labour must be held to account for breaking their home ownership pledge from the last election", said Mr Shapps.

• In their 2005 manifesto, Labour announced they would increase home ownership by 1 million by the end of a third Labour term. Yet by the start of 2010, home ownership has actually fallen, and is now at its lowest rate for nearly twenty years
• Labour's Housing Minister, John Healey, has attacked owner occupation, saying that "home ownership had been dropping since 2005 and I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing" and slammed parents passing a legacy on to their children since "inequality is compounded over the generations"
• No pledge on increasing home ownership is in Labour's document today, nor is any substantive pledge in their main manifesto.

The number of first-time buyers is now at its lowest rate since modern records began in 1970. According to the Government's own advisory body, only 26 per cent of families aged under 40 could afford to buy a home in England in 2008.


Affordability has further worsened in 2009 "because lenders have reduced the loan-to-value ratios at which they are prepared to lend".

Conservatives are calling for a permanent cut in stamp duty for first-time buyers up to £250,000; for an equity stake for social tenants who are good neighbours, and respecting the tenures and rents of social tenants; and are pledging to build more family homes with parking spaces and gardens for young families by scrapping flawed Whitehall density rules.

"Labour's Housing Minister now attacks the aspiration of getting on the housing ladder, proving how out of touch Gordon Brown's party has become", said Mr Shapps.

He also criticised the Liberal Democrats for wanting to put VAT on new homes, "making it impossible for young people to save for a large enough deposit.

"Only Conservatives will stand up for the hard-working people who want to get on the housing ladder and own a home of their own."

(CD/GK)