General election manifesto analysis: what the manifestos tell us about commitments to end homelessness

Monday 17 Jun 2024 @ 15:10
Homeless Link

This week saw the release of all the main parties manifestos and there’s lots to digest on housing, homelessness and policy linked to homelessness prevention. There’s a lot of variation between how different parties approached their manifestos – some have lots of very specific policies, others talk in broader terms around vision and ambition. What is encouraging to see is that for most of the main parties efforts to tackle homelessness are specifically mentioned.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of all polices including in the manifestos we’ve focussed on things that directly relate to homelessness, or supporting people experiencing homelessness. If you want to read the full manifesto for any party you can: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Green.

Not all parties have released their manifesto. We will update this page accordingly for all the main political parties.

Homelessness and rough sleeping

Conservatives	Labour	Liberal Democrats	Green Party
We will continue with our plans to end rough sleeping and prevent people from ending up on the streets in the first place	Develop a new cross-government strategy, working with Mayors and Councils across the country, to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness	End rough sleeping within the next Parliament	.
Deliver our commitments under the Local Authority Housing Fund and review the quality of temporary accommodation	Ensure veterans have access to the mental health, employment, and housing support and in other areas they need	Urgently publish a cross-Whitehall plan to end all forms of homelessness	.
.	.	Introducing a ‘somewhere safe to stay’ legal duty to ensure that everyone who is at risk of sleeping rough is provided with emergency accommodation and an assessment of their needs.	.
.	.	Ensuring sufficient financial resources for local authorities to deliver the Homelessness Reduction Act	.

Social housing

Conservatives	Labour	Liberal Democrats	Green Party
Renewing the Affordable Homes Programme that will deliver homes of all tenures	Deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation	150,000 new social homes a year	150,000 new social homes a yea
Deliver our commitments under the Local Authority Housing Fund and review the quality of temporary accommodation	1..5 million new homes over the next parliament	Give LAs the power to end Right to Buy in their areas	End the so-called ‘right to buy
Legislate for new ‘Local Connection’ and ‘UK Connection’ tests for social housing	Reviewing the increased right to buy discounts introduced in 2012 and increasing protections on newly-built social housing	.	.
Implement a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ expectation of social housing landlords for anti-social behaviour	.	.	.

Legislative reform

Conservatives	Labour	Liberal Democrats	Green Party
Pass a Renters Reform Bill that will deliver fairness in the rental market for landlords and renters alike.	Renters reform: immediately abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, prevent private renters being exploited and discriminated against, empower them to challenge unreasonable rent increases	Scrap the Vagrancy Act	Push to end Section 21 no-fault evictions and introduce long term leases.
Deliver the court reforms necessary to fully abolish Section 21 and strengthen other grounds for landlords to evict private tenants guilty of anti-social behaviour.	Take steps to decisively raise standards, including extending ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the private sector.	Renters reform: ban no fault evictions, make three year tenancies the default and create a national register of licensed landlords	.

Welfare reform

Conservatives	Labour	Liberal Democrats	Green Party
Reform our disability benefits so they are better targeted and reflect people’s genuine needs, while delivering a step change in mental health provision.	Review Universal Credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty.	Exempt groups of homeless people, and those at risk of homelessness, from the Shared Accommodation Rate.	Increase Universal Credit and legacy benefits by £40 a week.
Tighten up how the benefits system assesses capability for work.	Reform or replace the work capability assessment alongside a proper plan to support disabled people to work	Removing the two-child limit and the benefit cap	Abolish the two-child benefit cap
Introduce tougher sanctions rules so people who refuse to take up suitable jobs after 12 months on benefits can have their cases closed and their benefits removed entirely	.	.	Increase all disability benefits by 5%
.	.	.	Scrap the bedroom tax.

Homelessness and the immigration and asylum system

Conservatives	Labour	Liberal Democrats	Green Party
Bring our Illegal Migration Act into force and clearing the asylum backlog, with all claims processed in six months and the use of hotels ended	End use of hotels for asylum accommodation	Increase the ‘move-on’ period for refugees to 60 days	Push for an end to the hostile environment
.	.	Expand access to immigration legal advice by making the legal aid system simpler, fairer and more generous	Campaign to abolish the No Recourse to Public Funds condition
.	.	Repeal the ‘Right to Rent’ scheme	Push for those seeking asylum and protection to be permitted to work while their application is being decided.
.	.	Establish a firewall to prevent public agencies from sharing personal information with the Home Office for the purposes of immigration enforcement and repeal the immigration exemption in the Data Protection Act.	.

Inclusion health

Conservatives	Labour	Liberal Democrats	Green Party
Pass a new law to provide better treatment and support for severe mental health needs in the first session of the next Parliament.	As part of our health mission, Labour will tackle the social determinants of health, halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions in England.	Increasing the Public Health Grant, with a proportion of the extra funding set aside for those experiencing the worst health inequalities to co-produce plans for their communities.	Push for an end to the hostile environment
.	Develop local partnership working between the NHS and social care on hospital discharge.	Establishing a ‘Health Creation Unit’ in the Cabinet Office to lead work across government to improve the nation’s health and tackle health inequalities.	Campaign to abolish the No Recourse to Public Funds condition
.	.	Investing in more addiction services and support for drug users, including specialist youth support services.	Push for those seeking asylum and protection to be permitted to work while their application is being decided.
.	.	Ensuring that all police forces have a mental health professional in the control room at all times.	.
.	.	Supporting the police to achieve adequate levels of training in mental health response.	.

Criminal Justice

Conservatives	Labour	Liberal Democrats	Green Party
Bring our Illegal Migration Act into force and clearing the asylum backlog, with all claims processed in six months and the use of hotels ended	n Greater Manchester, probation is linked up with housing and health services to ensure offenders leaving custody receive the support they need. Labour will conduct a strategic review of probation governance, including considering the benefits of devolved models.	Introducing a National Resettlement Plan to improve the rehabilitation of people leaving prison and cut reoffending.	.
.	Introducing new Respect Orders – powers to ban persistent adult offenders from town centres, which will stamp out issues such as public drinking and drug use.	.	.

Channel website: http://www.homelesslink.org.uk

Original article link: https://homeless.org.uk/news/general-election-manifesto-analysis-what-the-manifestos-tell-us-about-commitments-to-end-homelessness/

Share this article

Latest News from
Homeless Link

Highest ever recorded rough sleeping numbers in London

27/06/2024 14:10:00

Figures released today by CHAIN and the GLA demonstrate that tackling homelessness must be a top priority for the incoming government next Friday.

Established Leaders: Transforming leadership in the homelessness sector

27/06/2024 10:05:00

With applications now open for our leadership programmes, we spoke to Established Leaders alumni and their colleagues about how the programme transformed their leadership and organisations.

Homeless Link seeks partners for a new trauma-informed care Learning Programme

25/06/2024 15:10:00

Today, Homeless Link published a new and much needed resource for those working in the homelessness sector.

Over 100 organisations write to party leaders urging action on migrant homelessness

25/06/2024 13:10:00

119 organisations working in the fields of homelessness and migrants’ rights have today written to the leaders of the Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat parties, urging whoever forms the next Government to address the issue of migrant homelessness and ensure that the asylum and immigration systems no longer drives people needlessly into homelessness and destitution.

It's Pride month!

19/06/2024 14:05:00

LGBTQI+ people are disproportionately affected by homelessness and are at a higher risk of having substance use and mental health needs due to discrimination, lack of acceptance and abuse. AKT, a national charity supporting LGBTQI+ young people facing homelessness, found that as many as 24% of young people experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQI+.

Micro grants available via The Society Foundation

19/06/2024 13:05:00

The Society Foundation is an independent grant giving trust, that provide financial support for organisations that help potentially disadvantaged people move towards paid work. The groups they prioritise are the recently homeless or vulnerably housed, ex-offenders, and 16-24 year olds not in employment, education or training.

WIREDGOV