The strategy should state current local need for social rented homes plus estimated future need and set out plans and timescales for meeting these needs in full. The strategy should ensure that all homes are decent, safe and affordable.

An appendix to the Strategy should set out the steps taken to consult, summarise the views expressed and highlight examples of how the strategy reflects these views.

Currently ten huge development Companies build 40% of all new homes. They are so rich that they can put pressure of Councils to grant planning consent on their own terms, because if they don’t get what they want they can threaten to appeal, spending hundreds of thousands on legal fees. Local Councils often cannot take the risk of such appeals because it could cost them thousands of pounds of Council Taxpayers’ money.

These Developers make huge profits. For example, one big developer invested £45m in new housing, and made a profit of £158m. Very little of such massive profits is spent on building more homes. Most profits go to shareholders and multi-million-pound bonuses to the Directors. Profits have increased hugely since Covid, and housing is now seen as a tradable asset within financial markets, instead of homes for people to live in. The planning system should be empowered to encourage small and medium-sized developers and encourage would be owners to commission builders directly to build a home for them. There should also be more Community-led Housing, such as Co-operatives, where those in need of a home to rent can work with others to build homes that they can afford to rent and manage.

Since the 1980s Council tenants have had the right to buy their rented Council home at huge discounts of up to 70% and within the first five years, over a million Council homes had been sold. Homes have continued to be sold ever since, with the newest homes in the nicest areas being most at risk of being lost from Councils’ supply of rented homes.

Around 40% of these homes have since been sold on the private landlords who now let them to private renters at rents often more than double Council rents.

The Right to Buy should be reformed to allow Councils in areas of high housing need to reduce the discount offered – if necessary to nil, and where the housing crisis is particularly acute, to suspect the Right to Buy for up to five years. This is essential for Councils to increase social rented homes to meet current need.

Where Council tenants may be able to afford to buy a home, Councils should offer them a suitable sum on money to as an incentive for them to buy a home elsewhere so that the home they vacate can be offered to another family in need of a social rented home.

In the UK currently income from work is taxed at a higher rate than unearned income from wealth.

In 2023 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earned £2.2 million and paid 23% in tax - the same tax rate as an average teacher.

Many millionaires agree that they should pay more tax. Campaign group Patriotic Millionaires UK are campaigning for six wealth tax policies that would raise £50 billion per year. These are:

1. Apply a 1-2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, raising up to £22 billion a year.

2. Equalise capital gains with income tax rates, raising up to £15.2 billion a year.

3. Apply national insurance to investment income, raising up to £8.6 billion a year.

4. End the inheritance tax loopholes that benefit the already wealthy, raising up to £1.4 billion a year.

5. Reform the rules on non-dom status, raising up to £3.2 billion a year.

6. Introduce a 4% tax on share buybacks, raising approximately £2 billion a year.

Our partners at Tax Justice UK have lots more ideas from increasing tax revenue without making us all pay more.

There is still often a big gap in the housing benefit received and the actual rent, even for people who are entitled to the maximum housing benefit. This is partly because once property becomes let, some landlords don’t increase the rent every year, but when properties are re-let, most landlords will try to get the maximum rent from new tenants.

There is also a big gap because in many areas, there are more people needing to rely on housing benefit than there are properties at the lowest third of rents, and of course, these are not all available to those on benefits. So many renters are forced to accept tenancies at rents which are higher that the Local Housing Allowance.

There is also no consideration of the condition of lettings, so landlords have no incentive to do repairs in order to get a higher rent from people on benefits.

A review of housing benefit should be undertaken so that it reflects what tenants have to pay. This review should be undertaken as part of a wider reform of Universal Credit, to include payments in advance, and a more sensitive approach to sanctions which often reduce benefits for reasons outside claimants’ control.