text: Ed Miliband will announce plans for first-time buyers to pay no stamp duty on properties worth up to £300,000 . First-time buyers will pay no stamp duty on properties worth up to £300,000 and have priority in the sale of new homes under a Labour government, Ed Miliband will say today. Mr Miliband will say Labour’s reduction in the rate of stamp duty to zero would benefit nine in ten first-time buyers – saving them up to £5,000 in tax. Labour claims its tax break – which would last three years – would be funded by a further squeeze on tax avoidance, higher levies on foreign buyers and cuts in tax relief for landlords who fail to keep properties up to standard. A Labour government would also change planning law to give first-time buyers who have lived in a local authority area for more than three years ‘first call’ on up to half of homes built locally. Labour aides say they would have a two-month window in which to buy a home before it was made more generally available in a reform designed to overcome local opposition to housing developments. The policy announcements – Labour’s most eye-catching so far in the campaign – are designed to counter Tory plans to expand Help to Buy loans, the right to buy for housing-association tenants and to offer 200,000 ‘starter homes’, sold at a 20 per cent discount. They are also meant to trump Chancellor George Osborne’s reforms to stamp duty, announced late last year, which have delivered savings for 98 per cent of homebuyers. Mr Osborne’s changes mean there is no stamp duty paid on the first £125,000 of a property purchase, 2 per cent between £125,000 and £250,000 and 5 per cent between £250,000 and £925,000. The changes are paid for by big hikes to duty on more expensive properties. Speaking in Stockton, Co Durham, Mr Miliband will warn of a housing crisis in which a severe lack of homes being built has priced millions out of the property market and left many who want to buy living in private rented accommodation. The rate of home ownership has slipped to its lowest for 30 years, and buy-to-let landlords and foreign investors are snapping up properties before others get a chance. Labour claims it will oversee the construction of a million homes by 2020 and introduce controversial ‘use or lose it’ powers ensuring developers build on land rather than hoarding it. Local authorities will be able to levy council tax on sites which remain undeveloped to try to force developers’ hands. ‘There’s nothing more British than the dream of home ownership, starting out in a place of your own,’ Mr Miliband will say. Mr Miliband will say Labour’s reduction in the rate of stamp duty to zero would benefit nine in ten first-time buyers – saving them up to £5,000 in tax . ‘But for so many young people today that dream is fading with more people than ever renting when they want to buy, new properties being snapped up before local people get a look-in, young families wondering if this country will ever work for them. It is simply too expensive for so many young people to buy a home today, saving up for the deposit, paying the fees and having enough left over for the stamp duty. ‘So we’re going to act so we can transform the opportunities for young working people in our country. For the first three years of the next Labour government, we will abolish stamp duty for all first-time buyers of homes under £300,000.’ Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls insists the party’s plan for stamp duty is ‘fully funded’. Eric Pickles, right, said rent control is the most effective way of destroying a city - bar bombing it . The stamp-duty cut would cost £225million a year. Labour says it would be paid for by tackling tax avoidance by landlords, which HMRC has calculated costs more than £550million each year. A ‘national register of landlords’ will mean this can be cut by at least 20 per cent, generating £100million, Labour claims. It would also increase tax paid by holding companies that buy UK property on behalf of investors and raise stamp duty on buyers from outside the EU. The party would also cut tax relief that rogue landlords get for repairs and upkeep when their properties are not up to standard. Landlords who let furnished properties can claim tax relief even if they are not investing in their property.
target: Labour’s reduction in stamp duty would benefit nine in ten first-time buyers .
  Tax break funded by squeeze on tax avoidance, higher levies on foreign buyers and cuts in tax relief for landlords who fail to maintain properties .
  Labour would also give the buyers ‘first call’ on half of homes built locally .