Labour will build a million more low-cost homes, end rough sleeping and cap private rents in line with average local incomes.

Shadow Housing Secretary and Wentworth & Dearne MP John Healey has set out the party’s housing policy in an interview with House magazine.

He says the rise in homelessness reflects the housing crisis, but added:

“We can fix this, we can reverse this.

“The root causes lie in a failure to build enough low-cost homes, a failure to step in to give better rights for private renters – the biggest single cause of homelessness now is the end of, or eviction from, a private tenancy – and the two-thirds cut back from the specialist funding for homeless people which is part of the programme we introduced as a Labour government.”

John says Labour can win the next general election “by having the answers to the problems that people face, by offering a hope that things can change and by exposing the nine years of Tory failure.”

Read the full interview.