“Four for 24”: Only Green MPs will stand up for solutions to UK’s housing crisis
6 October 2023
- Greens unveil target candidates for next general election with plan to ensure everybody can afford a quality home
- Fairer, Greener Homes Guarantee will provide funding to help households heat their homes and give renters the right to demand landlords insulate their homes
- Carla Denyer: “We think everyone deserves a warm, secure and affordable home”
- Adrian Ramsay: “Only by having more Green MPs will we have people in Parliament advocating the solutions to the country’s housing crisis”
The co-leaders of the Green Party today (Friday 6 October) officially unveiled the next generation of Green MPs alongside their plan to ensure everybody can afford to live in a quality home.
In a keynote speech at the party’s Autumn Conference in Brighton, (Friday 6 October) [1], co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay set out their ambitious plan to quadruple Green representation in Parliament after the next general election.
They said the party’s four target candidates [2] will hold the next government to account and push for their Fairer, Greener Homes Guarantee – a policy package designed to ensure everybody has access to a warm, secure home.
Denyer said:
“We think everyone deserves a warm, secure and affordable home. That’s how to build stronger communities and better lives for all.
“Yet successive governments have left a generation of renters unable to put down lasting roots because they can’t afford to get on the housing ladder – can’t even touch the first rung.
“The broken housing market leaves people much less likely to feel at home where they live – it’s hard to prioritise building relationships with your neighbours and local shop owners when you know you could get evicted with barely a moment’s notice.
“And too many private landlords in England are lining their pockets despite a quarter of privately rented homes not even meeting the most basic standards of decency.
“So as part of our promise for Fairer, Greener Homes for all, we are announcing a package of policies to make every house – and flat, and bedsit – a proper home.
“Every home should be properly insulated and free from damp and mould. We’d give renters the legal right to demand this from their landlords. No more battling to get things done and no more risk that you’ll get kicked out for insisting your home meets basic standards.
“And we want the amount of rent you pay to be fair, so we’d give councils the power to bring the cost of renting in line with local wages, and make sure housing benefit is enough too. No more lying awake at night worrying your landlord’s going to price you out of your home.
“That’s our promise to everyone – a home that’s warm, affordable and secure.”
The Fairer, Greener Homes Guarantee also includes:
- Investment of £145 billion over ten years to provide grants to retrofit all homes that need it, along with government-backed property-linked finance [3] to make up additional costs
- Give local authorities the power to impose rents controls on the private rental sector ensuring there are affordable homes for key and critical workers in overheated local housing markets
- Plans to increase the stock of social housing by 150,000 homes a year including by bringing empty homes back into use
Co-leader Adrian Ramsay said:
“The other political parties are simply not living in the real world when it comes to dealing with the housing crisis while reaching the critical net zero target.
“The Conservatives are capitulating to developers while Labour still supports the highly damaging Right to Buy [4] which helped create the crisis.
“This is why it is so crucial that we achieve our aim of Four for 24 – the next generation of Green MPs, our four target candidates, elected at the next election.
“Only by having more Green MPs will we have people in Parliament advocating the solutions to the country’s housing crisis.”
ENDS
Notes
1 The Green Party Autumn Conference takes place at The Brighton Centre, in Brighton, from Friday 6 October to Sunday 8 October
2 The party’s four target candidates are:
- Siân Berry, in Brighton Pavilion
- Carla Denyer, in Bristol Central
- Adrian Ramsay, in Waveney Valley
- Ellie Chowns, in North Herefordshire
3 Low interest government backed loans to pay for retrofit not covered by government grants. These loans will be linked to the property, not the owner at the time that retrofitting took place. Homeowners will need to pay off the loan while they live there and benefit from the reduced energy bills.
Tenants will be able to insist their landlord accesses the loans and has the work carried out. If the landlord will not do this, the local authority can receive the loan and their local authorities carry out the work.