On Tuesday in his first keynote ministerial speech Grant Shapps said “If we are really serious about supporting people’s aspirations for home ownership, the real prize is we must build more homes”- yet every coalition measure announced so far takes the country further away from that prize.
Labour in government left a mixed legacy in housing policy. The greatest success undoubtedly was the renewal of our social housing stock – the Decent Homes scheme transformed the lives of many hundreds of thousands of Council and other socially housed tenants, resolving the scandal of damp-ridden, cold, indecent homes – the legacy of Thatcher’s sell-off and sell out of the social housing sector. Over the last few years there has been real success in keeping people in their homes, with repossessions half those of the recession of the early 1990s.
But the fundamental national housing problem over many decades was not tackled – the lack of supply to match ever-increasing demand. Despite belated efforts at council home building Labour in office disappointed on house building. With the trebling of house prices in the 10 years to 2008, only modestly mitigated in the recession by a 16 per cent reduction to date, and social housing waiting lists longer than ever, house building on a massive scale was required, but not delivered. The Eco Towns were a project whose time had come, but there was a lack of political will and towards the end and a lack of money to push it through. Too many of the early years were spent in fussing over the structure of social housing ownership, in particular, cogitating over whether councils could be trusted to build and run council housing and too little in getting homes built.
The lack of supply of housing has already had a social effect with people in their twenties and thirties rendered without a prospect of buying a home and no social rented option with the security that has traditionally brought. As a result they remain in the parental home or privately rent at enormous cost. In many parts of the country aspirations towards having your own home have turned to long-term objectives for middle-age only. For those on the housing ladder, even with record low mortgage rates, the repayments take up an ever larger part of income. These things are important not just in themselves but because they represent a large block to the mechanism of social mobility and limit the prospects of our society to renew itself and to create a good society. The lack of supply of housing has the effect of the older generation hogging the housing and bearing down on the next.
As a result on the door at the general election, in my experience, the lack of provision of housing was one of the three main issues raised along with immigration and job concerns. Discontent was particularly felt by council tenants in overcrowded homes and by the under-40s, and they placed some of the blame with the Labour government.
The new government on housing, as on political reform, bank regulation, and secondary education, is hyperbolic and ministers responsible have raised expectations. Early signs are that these expectations have absolutely no prospect of being met.
All of the measures so far announced will hit house building and the construction industry. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise given the lack of priority given housing in the coalition agreement – where it is not mentioned once.
First, the cuts of £1.165 billion as a ‘taster’ of things to come by George Osborne to the department for communities and local government in which housing sits coupled with an end of ring-fencing of many direct grants to councils will mean that the money that was being put towards the very modest burgeoning council house building projects, such as 30 built in Lockleaze in the constituency in which I stood, Bristol North West, will cease.
Secondly, there are changes of rules as to density of housing projects in urban areas freeing up options for developers, but which will, in fact, mean fewer smaller affordable homes as the developers limit themselves to cashing in on the premium end of the market.
Above all the change in the planning classification of outdoor spaces to residential properties to combat so-called “garden grabs” throws up additional planning hurdles for any private or social developer wanting to build beyond the existing footprint of any urban residential development. A house building market that has recently shown the slightest signs of recovery has in one heavy step been stamped on by an ambitious Tory minister (in this case Greg Clark) keen to prove his right-wing credentials.
The coalition has no substance behind their stated prize of building more homes. The promise of Local Housing Trusts without even maintaining the £7.5 billion fund that Labour planned to spend building homes makes this initiative look just another part of the hollow ‘Big Society’ talking shop, a thin veneer covering cuts and no action.
As an unashamed proponent of house building I believe the challenge for Labour is to expose the hollow words of the coalition for what they are, try to force them to a more progressive course, but more realistically to set out and fully commit to positive practical measures for mass home building in any future Labour administration.