Labour’s Shadow Housing minister John Healey has this morning hit out at the Tories’ record on housing and home ownership, as David Cameron prepares to make the topic the centrepiece of his Tory conference speech today.

Cameron will pledge to build 200,000 ‘starter homes’ over the course of this parliament, encouraging people into home ownership rather than renting.

However, Cameron’s definition of ‘starter homes’ was criticised by housing charity Shelter in August, when they published research showing that an income of around £50,000 would be needed to afford one of these houses – rising to £77,000 in London. People on the Tories’ ‘living wage’ of £9 would be able to afford one of the properties in 2% of local authority areas. Families on the average wage will only be able to afford the homes in 40% of local authorities.

John Healey has slammed the “five years of failure on housing” since Cameron took office, which has seen home ownership fall to its lowest level in decades. He said:

“Over the last five years with David Cameron in charge the Conservatives have completely failed on housing. They claim to be the party of home ownership but on their watch it has fallen every year for the past five years and is now at its lowest level for a generation – for those under 35, it’s down by over a fifth.

“Their record of failure has also seen rapidly rising rents, more homelessness, higher housing benefits bill, and fewer homes built than at any time since the 1920s.

“After five years of failure on housing, the millions of people struggling to cope with their housing costs deserve a real plan for more affordable homes to rent and buy. And the country needs a new wide debate about how our deepening housing crisis can be tackled.”

Jeremy Corbyn has made clear that housing will be one of his priorities as Labour leader since being elected, and favours giving more powers to council to build homes.