Labour arrives at Conference with a substantial affordable housing programme. Its £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme is a significant long-term commitment and the first £9.58 billion of strategic partnership funding is intended to support 73,600 homes.
At least 60% will be for Social Rent – an understandable priority when almost 180,000 children are living in temporary accommodation.
And yet home-ownership figures are well below its early-2000s peak. According to the English Housing Survey, home ownership has fallen from 71% of households in 2003 to 65% in 2024-25, while the proportion privately renting has almost doubled from the levels recorded throughout the 1980s and 1990s to 19% today.
Housing policy should not force a choice between those in greatest need and working households seeking ownership. A functioning system needs both. Labour should use its Conference to define Shared Ownership’s place in its housing offer and ensure it remains deliverable.
DO NOT NEGLECT THE MISSING MIDDLE
Shared Ownership serves households whose incomes are too high for social housing but whose deposits and mortgage capacity do not stretch to an outright purchase.
This is not a small or speculative market. In 2024-25, according to Government figures, 18,603 initial Shared Ownership sales were recorded by large private registered providers and local authorities. Of the purchasers whose status was reported, an estimated 70% were first-time buyers. The average deposit was £22,200 and the average initial share was 38%.
Those figures show how Shared Ownership can convert stable earnings into a foothold in ownership. But Shared Ownership is too often treated as a secondary product rather than part of the housing ladder.
Labour should resist that false hierarchy. Whereas Social Rent addresses acute need, Shared Ownership helps prevent another group becoming permanently confined to expensive private renting. Mixed-tenure development also broadens demand and can support the pace at which larger schemes are built and occupied.
TURN FUNDING INTO VIABLE HOMES
The Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) 2026 to 2036 expressly allows Shared Ownership and promises greater fairness and transparency for buyers. While that is welcome, inclusion in a prospectus does not guarantee delivery.
Providers are managing higher repair, safety and financing costs while committing capital to existing homes. The latest Regulator of Social Housing survey shows the pressure clearly: affordable home ownership completions fell to 3,240 in the quarter to June 2026 (the lowest quarterly total in six years) while 3,439 homes had remained unsold for more than six months. First-tranche sales margins recovered to 13.3% but were still the second-lowest recorded since data collection began in 2011.
Our plea to the Labour Party Conference is to kick-start a practical discussion with providers, lenders, developers and sales specialists. Grant must reflect achievable first-tranche sales rather than assume that buyers can take larger shares than local incomes support.
Providers should be involved before tenure, specification and price are fixed. Where Section 106 terms have become unworkable, variations must be agreed quickly enough to preserve the affordable home.
UPDATE RULES DESIGNED FOR A DIFFERENT MARKET
The national income limits remain £80,000 outside London and £90,000 in London. These blunt thresholds take no account of the wide difference between local house prices. Nor do additional local income caps, connection tests and nomination periods always identify the households capable of buying the homes provided.
The Government should review eligibility alongside affordability, with scope for regional variation and regular uprating. The purpose should not be to extend support to households that can buy without it; it should be to stop excluding people who cannot buy outright simply because a static national threshold says that they ought to be able to.
The same principle applies to initial shares. A smaller share may be the responsible choice when mortgage rates exceed the rent charged on unsold equity. Policy and funding should recognise that buyer behaviour has changed rather than judge success against an obsolete assumption.
GIVE THE TENURE A PUBLIC IDENTITY
Finally, Shared Ownership needs clearer national communication. Help to Buy was easy to recognise and backed by an authoritative government presence. Shared Ownership is still explained provider by provider, while misconceptions about eligibility, resales, staircasing and responsibility for costs fill the gap.
Government should establish consistent consumer information covering purchase, ongoing costs, staircasing and resale and promote it alongside stronger transparency requirements. Reform will achieve less if eligible buyers do not understand or trust the product.
Labour has made a serious commitment to social and affordable housebuilding. It’s Conference should now complete the argument. A housing ladder cannot work if policy strengthens its lowest rung while allowing the next one to weaken.
Shared Ownership deserves a defined place in Labour’s programme, supported by realistic funding, modern eligibility rules and the confidence to explain whom it is for.
