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.
