Jeff Smith, the MP for Manchester Withington, has backed Labour’s plans to build a million genuinely affordable homes over 10 years, including the biggest council house-building programme in nearly 40 years.

The plans form a key part of Labour’s Green Paper on affordable housing – Housing for the Many.

In Manchester, there are 13,466 households on the council housing waiting list, with 1,114,477 household on local authorities’ waiting lists across the country. But despite the demand, over the last three years for which there are figures, an average of only 2,123 council homes, and 6,374 homes for social rent have been built.

Nationally, Labour’s new analysis shows that at the current rate of building of council and social homes, it will take 130 years to house all 1.1 million people on council housing waiting lists.

Commenting, Jeff Smith MP said:

“After nine years of failure the Conservatives have no plan to fix the affordable housing crisis. It is indefensible that communities are losing affordable homes when they have never been so badly needed.

“I see it every week in south Manchester, when I talk to residents who can’t access the social housing they need. A Labour government will stop the conversion of social homes into more expensive housing and build a million low-cost homes, the majority for social rent.”