Caroline Flint, the shadow communities and local government secretary, leads this review, asking how Labour can meet families' "aspiration for good housing".
She will be advised by Tom Bloxham, of developers Urban Splash, Peter Williams, formerly of the Council of Mortgage Lenders, and Steve Wilcox, of the Centre for Housing Policy.
Tom Clark writes:
Gordon Brown talked about housing at the start of his premiership, but never managed to achieve anything much, leaving power with new building stuck at historically low levels.
With little money available to subsidise the building of social housing, Labour needs to decide how it can improve on its dismal record on an issue which has special resonance in the electoral battlegrounds of southern England.
Should the party propose a radical relaxation of planning rules, which would get more homes built, although at the cost of the countryside? And should it, as Miliband proposed in a recent speech, use the rationing of the scarce social housing stock available to encourage volunteering and hard work, and – by extension – punish supposed idleness?
