It sounds great – a claim that 1.5 million new dwellings are to be built. But Angela Rayner’s homes promise is that Labour will not build any new houses.

Back in the day – and I’m talking about the 1940s, 50s, 60s and even 70s – a Labour government would have built council houses itself, which could be rented cheaply to working-class people and the proceeds used to provide public services.

Those days are long gone and the current version of the Labour Party is reduced to relaxing planning rules, pandering to developers in order to persuade them to get the diggers out and start work.

Angela Rayner will re-classify what she calls “low-quality” Green Belt land as “Grey Belt”, in order to give developers and incentive – unspoilt land that they can build on. I wonder how many will be on flood plains, or will inflict planning blight on homes that have already been built nearby?

There are other changes, including a requirement for councils to meet government-set housing targets in their decisions to allocate land.

But these all require developers, with planning permission for areas of land, to actually start building on them. There’s no guarantee that this will happen. They don’t want houses to be cheap, for obvious profit-based reasons.

This Writer wonders whether Rayner and her advisers have considered all the alternatives that might be available.

For example: how many dwellings are currently empty because owners/landlords want more money than potential occupiers are able or willing to offer?

Why not strengthen rules, requiring them to fill those buildings – or face compulsory purchase? Wouldn’t that be better?

This is just an idea from the top of This Writer’s head; I’m sure experts will have better ideas and I wonder why we’re not hearing from them.

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