In a speech to the party’s national policy forum, Mr Miliband is set to confirm that increasing the number of new homes built each year will be a key priority for an incoming Labour government. He will confirm measures to force house builders to stop hoarding land with his “use it or lose it” proposal.
Other options also being considered include giving councils the power to fine companies that own large areas of undeveloped land or to require them to pay council tax or a special “land tax” on the undeveloped land in question. As a last resort house builders who refuse to build could find themselves facing a compulsory purchase order.
Mr Miliband will say: “We have to be willing to confront some of the obstacles to house-building. Across our country there are firms sitting on land waiting for it to accumulate in value and not building on it – landowners with planning permission who simply do not build. We have to change that… permission to build should mean landowners build.”
Mr Miliband recognises that the profits of the biggest four developers by volume – Barratt, Berkeley, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey – have risen by 557% since the coalition took office. The number of homes completed by these firms increased by just 4,067 in 2012, and the number of affordable homes built last year actually fell by 26%.
