Andy Burnham says housing is "an essential everyone needs for a good life"

At the Labour Party conference, the prime minister, Andy Burnham, set out housing measures that would end the right to buy for newly built social homes while leaving it intact for tenants already in place. He said more than a million people are on waiting lists, a figure he compared with the number of social homes lost through right-to-buy sales during the 1980s. The plans also include helping councils build on unused public land, granting authorities powers to take over empty properties and substandard rentals whose owners disregard warnings to make repairs, with legislation if needed. Burnham presented the package as a change of direction in housing policy and said a decent home is fundamental to health, family life and children's prospects.