Councils will be forced to sell off expensive vacant properties and replace them with affordable housing, under plans announced in the Conservative’s General Election manifesto.
Published yesterday afternoon, the manifesto also includes plans for a £1bn Brownfield Regeneration Fund to deliver 400,000 new homes. It also confirmed the extension of the Right to Buy to policy to 1.3 million housing association tenants.
Prime minister, David Cameron, also said free childcare for working families would be doubled to 30 hours a week. He also announced plans for a ‘tax-free’ minimum wage so that no-one on the minimum wage will have to pay income tax.
He said: ‘Just as in this Parliament, we will take action on the deficit, properly fund the NHS and cut taxes for working people.
‘What’s more, by 2018 we’ll be running a surplus…Britain walking taller, knowing that our economy is secure – and that we haven’t passed on levels of debt to our children that they could never hope to repay.’
Other proposals in the manifesto included saving £1 for every £100 spent by the Government for two years, the removal of inheritance tax, 500 new free schools and rail fares being frozen for five years.