Levels of home ownership falling

The proportion of people owning a home stands at 63 per cent, having fallen from its peak of 71 per cent in 2003.

Official figures show the proportion of families in private rented homes has risen over the last decade from 30 per cent to 36 per cent while the share in social housing has fallen from 36 per cent to 32 per cent.

The latest English Housing Survey showed mortgage holders spend an average of 18 per cent on housing costs, compared to 28 per cent for social renters and 35 per cents for private renters.

Shadow Housing Secretary John Healey, the Wentworth and Dearne MP, said: “These new government figures show yet another fall in the home-ownership rate in England to the lowest rate in more than 30 years. There are now almost 200,000 fewer home-owning households than in 2010 when Conservative Ministers first took charge.

“Meanwhile, the number of people stuck in an insecure and increasingly expensive private rented sector has grown dramatically over the last seven years. Since 2010, the number of households renting privately as ballooned by over a million.

“After seven years of failure on housing, not only has home-ownership fallen, but affordable housebuilding has hit a 24 year low and rough sleeping has more than doubled. The truth is Conservative Ministers are out of ideas and have no long-term plan to fix the cost of housing crisis.

“Theresa May says she wants a country that works for everyone, so she should back Labour’s plans to build thousands more affordable homes to rent and buy, improve rights for renters and end the scandal of rough sleeping.”