"In five weeks, either Keir Starmer or I will be Prime Minister," Rishi Sunak said, as he spoke to the country earlier this month in the first of a series of televised debates with his rivals.

Since then, the manifestos of all the major political parties in the UK have been published, with most of them focusing on issues such as national security, the NHS and immigration.

But issues closer to home for those in commercial real estate, such as housing, planning and business rates, all feature heavily.

Ahead of the election on 4 July, CoStar News looks through the manifestos of the main two political parties, the Conservatives and Labour, to explore how they differ on key issues and how the industry has reacted to their pledges.

Housing will be very high on the list of priorities of the property sector and the general public when the votes are cast. The issue is prominent in nearly all parties' manifestos, but the Conservatives have pledged to build more homes out of the top two.

Sunak's party is promising to deliver 1.6 million homes in England in the next parliament, with the Tories looking to achieve this by delivering a "record number of homes each year on brownfield land in urban areas".

Part of this ambition, according to its manifesto, will involve the party providing a fast-track route through the planning system for new homes on previously developed land in the 20 largest cities. It will also abolish legacy EU nutrient neutrality rules to "unlock the building of 100,000 new homes with local consent".

The Conservatives, only outdone by the Liberal Democrats who have a goal of 1.9 million homes, also want to raise density levels in inner London to those of other European cities like Paris and Barcelona. This, its manifesto says, will force the Mayor of London to plan more homes on brownfield sites, including on underused industrial land.

But the party, should it hold on to power, is looking to avoid building in rural areas, pledging to "protect green belt from uncontrolled development". It will focus housebuilding in places such as the inner city, and says it will ensure there is no top-down requirement for councils to remove green belt protection.

Justin Young, chief executive at RICS, suggested in a statement that the target would require a major effort from the party. He said: "Having delivered only 2.5 million homes over the last 14 years, the Conservative party has made an ambitious pledge to build 1.6 million homes over the next five years. That is over 300,000 new homes a year, which hasn’t been achieved since the 60s."

Like the Conservatives, the Labour Party is pledging to build more than a million homes.

The party says it will build a slightly smaller amount – 1.5 million homes – over the next parliament and will immediately update the National Policy Planning Framework. This, Labour says, will include the restoration of mandatory housing targets which were removed under the Conservatives.

The Labour party says it, too, will take a "brownfield-first approach", prioritising the development of previously used land "wherever possible, and fast-tracking approval of urban brownfield sites".

But Starmer's party says that brownfield development alone "will not be enough" to meet the UK's housing need, a point on which the two parties differ. Instead Labour says it will take a "more strategic approach to green belt land designation and release" to build more homes. The party has also said it will prioritise the release of lower quality "grey belt"

A Labour plan to build a "new generation for new towns" is also confirmed in the manifesto having been touted in the run-up to the launch. The party says the strategy will create a "series of large-scale new communities across England".

As part of this, Labour will introduce what it calls "new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning". The party is also promising to give Combined Authorities new planning powers along with "new freedoms and flexibilities to make better use of grant funding".

The party says it will also go further with compulsory purchase compensation rules to "improve land assembly, speed up site delivery, and deliver housing, infrastructure, amenity, and transport benefits in the public interest".

Colin Brown, head of planning and development at Carter Jonas, said in a statement: "Both Labour and the Conservatives intend that local communities will continue to have a major say on housebuilding in their areas, and that use of brownfield sites should be prioritised.

"Clearly, Labour will have to demonstrate how they will achieve the first of these objectives while at the same time imposing housing targets from above and this will continue to represent a major challenge for whatever party ends up in office after July 4.

"A major point of difference does however emerge in relation to the green belt, with Labour making it clear that a more strategic approach will be taken so that the right homes are built in the right places.

"In our view, this is the correct approach to take, especially bearing in mind that many green belt locations are those where housing affordability is at or beyond crisis levels. It remains to be seen exactly how land might be categorised as ‘grey belt’ and we suspect there will be a little more nuance than simply distinguishing beyond what is ‘green’ or ‘grey’."

Many in the real estate industry will be looking to the UK's next political leader to deliver on planning, with major concerns around the speed at which applications are currently processed. The sector also acknowledges that local authority planning teams are under-resourced and require support.

Labour has potentially been more vocal on planning in its election campaign, promising to "get Britain building again". It calls the current planning system a "major brake on economic growth" and has pledged to update national policy to ensure it meets modern needs.

It has also pledged to ensure planning authorities have "up-to-date Local Plans", while it will fund the recruitment of 300 new planning officers, funded via increasing the rate of the stamp duty surcharge paid by non-UK residents.

Melanie Leech, chief executive of the British Property Federation, said in a statement that Labour was right to focus on improving the planning system as the key enabler of growth.

She said: "Introducing effective strategic planning means that decisions are made at the appropriate national or regional level, rather than just locally, which will allow us to deliver more homes against a clear target and also provide the logistics infrastructure and business spaces we need to support sustainable communities.

"Measures to ensure up-to-date local plans are in place and a new approach to ‘grey belt’ land are also welcome, as is the commitment to more local authority planners so that existing projects can be unblocked, and local authorities are better able to engage with our sector to provide for future needs."

The Conservatives also focus on planning in their manifesto, promising to "continue to simplify the planning system to make it easier to build, faster". The party also says it will speed up the average time it takes to sign off major infrastructure projects from four years to one.

One of the ways the party says it will achieve this is by introducing reforms to "outdated EU red tape to protect nature" while allowing the construction of structures like new homes, prisons and energy schemes. The Conservatives say their policies around planning will also help to "give our high streets a new lease of life" and help to "regenerate defunct shopping centres".

Another vital issue for the property sector is business rates, with the BPF labelling them "unsustainable" earlier this year.

The Conservatives' plans for business rates centre around changing the balance between how much in-store and online retailers are charged. Under the party, the latter would pay a higher amount than their physical counterparts.

Sunak's party has said it will "continue to ease the burden" of business rates for high street, leisure and hospitality businesses by increasing the multiplier on distribution warehouses that support online shopping over time.

It is part of a package it says is worth £34.3 billion over the next five years to support small business and the high street, according to its manifesto. Data provided by commercial real estate intelligence firm Altus shows that there are 1,520 large distribution warehouses in England this financial year paying £1.31 billion in business rates.

Alex Probyn, president of Altus Group, said that, while the proposal was "eye-catching and populistic, in reality, the measure was relatively insignificant”. He added: "The level of support for the high street will ultimately depend on the level of the supplement levied on online retailers."

Leech said: "From a commercial perspective, the proposal to shift some of the burden of business rates onto warehouses misses the point, which is that the overall burden of business rates is simply too high for everyone. Alongside a reduction in the rate, what we need is more frequent revaluations to ensure that rates bills better track property values, and to de-couple business rates from inflation to make the tax more sustainable."

Labour is also looking to shake up business rates, arguing that the current system "disincentivises investment, creates uncertainty and places an undue burden on our high streets".

The party promises to overhaul the business rates system to raise the same revenue, but in a "fairer way". Like the Conservatives, it says it wants to "level the playing field between the high street and online retailers".

It says its plans will also better incentivise investment, tackle empty properties and support entrepreneurship. However, it does not go into particular detail on how it will look to redress the balance. John Webber, Colliers head of business rates, said in a statement that the Labour promises were similar to what had been pledged before by its rivals.

“Successive Conservative governments have promised to reform the tax, but none have delivered, just making the system more onerous and expensive for the ratepayer as time has gone on. Whilst it is encouraging to read of Labour’s aspiration to breathe life back into our high streets, unless they tell us what they plan to do, how can anyone scrutinise their plans or take their calls for change seriously?"

During this election campaign, both parties have promised to boost investment in the UK, but they take different approaches in their manifestos to achieve this.

Labour has made clear that it will look to use public investment to "unlock additional private sector investment" to provide a return for taxpayers. The party indicates that it will develop a 10-year infrastructure strategy, alongside plans for industrial and regional development to give the private sector "certainty about the project pipeline".

The topic of certainty came up time and time again at the UKREiiF conference in Leeds last month, with delegates asking for stable conditions, both economic and political, to foster the confidence investors need to get trading again.

Labour also says it will work with the private sector, including banks and building societies, to provide more private finance to accelerate home upgrades and low carbon heating. Lizzy Galbraith, political economist at Abrdn, said in a statement that this represented a "notable shift in Labour's strategy" compared with previous years.

She said: "Labour has shifted to a vision in which the state aims to direct investments towards high-value projects and restore investor confidence through a combination of clearer planning documents, fewer fiscal events and in some cases, joint financing. Labour believes they can rectify the current challenges of fluctuating government policies and inconsistency, which have previously undermined private investor trust."

In case of the Conservatives, the party will build on its Freeports initiative, extending it to more areas in the next parliament. It has already established 12 Freeports across the UK, which the party claims has generated just under £3 billion in investment.

The Tories are also promising to back Investment Zones across the country, giving areas £160 million to "catalyse local growth and investment". They have also pledged to grant devolution powers to "every part of England that wants one" by 2030. Labour has also said they will "widen devolution to more areas".

One other way Sunak's party is looking to attract investment is by working in partnership with the private sector and institutional investors to create locally-led urban development corporations that will "unlock new urban regeneration schemes". The plans will lead to "new quarters" in Leeds, Liverpool and York.