Missing the target

Posted: June 22, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Housebuilding | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Never mind 1.5 million new homes in England during this parliament. The emerging question is whether the government can deliver 1 million.

The chances of hitting the target were between slim and zero even at the point that it was made a manifesto commitment. 

Estimates from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) indicate that delivery was already slowing before the economic fall-out from the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz made the prospects for housebuilding look even grimmer. 

Between the start of the Labour government on July 9 2024 and June 14 this year delivery is estimated at 392,400 net additional homes. 

Far from the 300,000 needed every year of this parliament the number of additional new homes fell below 200,000 in 2025/26. 

Delivery of under 400,000 in almost two years means 1.1 million will be required over the rest of this parliament to hit the target: 367,000 a year.

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Taxing questions for the housing strategy

Posted: June 11, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Home ownership, Stamp duty, Tax | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Sooner or later a government will have to grasp the nettle of reforming the way that housing is taxed.

Sooner is the implication of Andy Burnham’s still semi-declared campaign to be Labour leader and prime minister, with the would-be MP for Makerfield keen to reform ‘regressive council tax’ and saying that he believes that land is ‘under-taxed’. 

Soon, says the all-party Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee, in a report this week calling for reform of stamp duty land tax to improve affordability and a review of other property taxes. 

Later has been the answer from all previous governments as they look at the implications of reforming stamp duty, council tax and inheritance tax and see a political minefield ahead of them.

But it’s had to imagine a long-term housing strategy that does not include reform of property taxes, which may be one big reason why the timetable for the one expected from this government has slipped so much.

First promised ‘in the coming months’ in July 2024, the strategy has been scheduled for ‘the new year’, ‘the spring’ and then ‘later this year’ in 2025, then ‘in the spring of 2026’. The current position, almost two years into the Labour government, is that it will be published ‘in due course’.

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From speech to action

Posted: May 14, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Commonhold, Fire safety, Leasehold, Right to buy, Social housing | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

If it was possible to avoid the wall-to-wall coverage of personalities and politics, Wednesday’s King’s Speech signals some significant progress on policy. 

As the background briefing document makes clear, the government is attempting to resolve problems that have dogged housing for years, decades and in one case more than a century. 

Taking those problems in reverse order of intractability, the Social Housing Renewal Bill will finally kill off three zombie policies that were introduced by the Conservatives ten years ago but never implemented. 

Measures requiring local authorities to introduce fixed-term tenancies, charge higher rents for higher-earning tenants and sell off high-value homes threatened the very existence of social housing but became untenable in the wake of Grenfell. 

Now they will be repealed, with the government arguing this will give providers greater confidence to invest in new homes.

The same Bill will introduce significant, previously announced, changes to the Right to Buy: increasing the eligibility threshold from three to 10 years, reducing percentage discounts up to a maximum of 15 per cent and exempting new homes so that they cannot be sold for 35 years.

These measures should dramatically reduce demand for the Right to Buy, especially when accompanied by reductions in maximum cash discounts to pre-2012 levels and an extension of cash floor protection, but they will not kill the policy completely.

The government could have used its huge majority to follow Scotland and Wales by abolishing the Right to Buy, or allowed local authorities to apply for exemptions for areas of high housing stress, but has instead opted to curb it. 

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Housing in the elections

Posted: May 1, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Rent control, Scotland, Wales | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Significant change could be on the way for housing in the wake of next week’s elections.

The obvious place to start is Welsh politics, which seems set for a major change that could end 100 years of Labour dominance and see another party running the Welsh Government for the first time since devolution.

Recent polls have Plaid Cymru and Reform running neck and neck and a victory for either would take housing in new but opposite directions.

With a new electoral system adding extra uncertainty, Plaid looks favourite to form a new government but would probably need formal or informal support from at least one other party.

That result would bring some continuity for social housing: the last Welsh Government started with a cooperation agreement between Labour and Plaid, the two parties have similar targets for new social homes and the change might be felt more in details such as the energy standards that apply to them.

But Plaid is also proposing two significant changes with the potential to rewire the wider housing system.

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The legacies of the Cutteslowe Walls

Posted: April 7, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Council housing, History, Housebuilding | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Walk down Wentworth Road in north Oxford and you will come across the scene of one of the most famous episodes in housing history.

It’s a story that has come to symbolise the class divisions of the past but there are also contemporary resonances for housing and society more generally. 

About halfway down the street you’ll notice something strange: the house numbers suddenly go out of sequence and the street name changes to Aldrich Road. Look at the wall of the house opposite and you will see a blue plaque commemorating what happened there in 1934.

The story is very well told in a new series on Radio Four. The Shadow of the Cuttleslowe Walls does much more than just delve into the past, it also looks at the present and what has happened to the area since tells us about housing now.

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State of the UK housing nations

Posted: March 30, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Social housing | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing

What are the investment prospects for housing in the rest of this decade? What challenges lie ahead? And how do the different UK nations measure up to each other on affordable housing?

This year’s UK Housing Review (UKHR) offers all the statistics we’ve come to expect, plus commentary on everything from the rise of for-profit housing associations to the impact of the Right to Buy and from rising homelessness to falling social lettings. 

But my eye was drawn first to John Perry’s chapter on housing expenditure plans.

Ever since the launch of Help to Buy, the scope of his analysis has extended beyond conventional grant to encompass a growing number of loans and guarantees across tenures.

At the peak (or nadir) in 2017 a staggering 84 per cent of total support for housing over the next five years was going to the private market (£42.8 billion) with just 16 per cent for social and affordable housing (£8.2 billion). 

The bulk of that private support was in Help to Buy equity loans and mortgage guarantees and the total amount has fallen since the end of those schemes. 

Comparable analysis for last year’s UKHR showed that for the first time since then the majority of support over the five years (2020/21 to 2025/26) was going to social and affordable housing. 

The 2026 edition looks forward to the next five years from 2026/27 to 2029/30. In the wake of Labour’s ‘biggest boost in a generation’, 51 per cent of total funding will go to social and affordable housing (£21.7 billion) comprising £16.2 billion in grant, £2.5 billion in loans from the National Housing Bank and £3 billion for the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme.

Most of the remaining  49 per cent going to the private market (£21.2 billion) will be in grant, loans and guarantees for the National Housing Delivery Fund, alongside £1 billion in guarantees to support small housebuilders and £1.7 billion in debt guarantees to support build to rent. 

What feels significant is that all of that private investment will support supply whereas Help to Buy was also a big stimulus to demand. 

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Spring Statement highlights Autumn to do list

Posted: March 4, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Council housing, Homelessness, Housebuilding, Local government, Temporary accommodation | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing

There were by choice no policy announcements in the Spring Statement but the message about the government’s housing priorities could hardly have been clearer.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves had deliberately downplayed the significance of the statement, which was meant to be an update on the public finances rather than a full-blown Budget.

That meant that – with one exception – there were no background documents to wade through to find hidden announcements and hints about future policy direction.]

The exception came from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), and the first message was about the key manifesto target of 1.5 additional homes in this parliament. 

Not a chance, says the OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook: in the five years from 2025/26 to 2030/31 the independent watchdog forecasts there will be just 1.3 million net additions across the UK (30,000 higher than it forecast in November).

Net additions will fall in line with subdued recent housing starts to just 220,000 in 2026/27, it says, but then rise sharply to just over 305,000 by 2030/31 ‘reflecting the impact of planning reforms’.

That may sound closer than we thought to 1.5 million and the government will welcome the acknowledgement of the impact of its policies.

But eagle-eyed readers will already have spotted that the target is for England whereas the forecast is for the UK and that they cover different time periods.

Adjusting for homes built in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland only increases the size of the shortfall: England-only net additions will total around 1.1 million, 400,000 short of the target.

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Standards and trade-offs

Posted: February 9, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Decent Homes, Energy efficiency, Social housing | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Can social landlords improve their existing homes at the same time as they deliver ‘the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation’?

The answer is that they will have to but a select committee report published on Monday lays bare the scale of the task ahead and the trade-offs that will have to be made.

As landlords are only too aware, the next ten years will see implementation of Awaab’s Law (phased introduction between 2025 and 2027), Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (by 2030) and the revised Decent Homes Standard (by 2035). 

Add continuing work on building safety and they face a massive programme of work on existing homes that will have to be balanced against bids to build new ones under the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP). 

Monday’s report from the Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee lays out a ‘challenging backdrop’ of rising costs and a shortage of skills. 

The all-party committee concludes that: ‘Even with the government’s investment in social homes and changes to the rent settlement, we are concerned that the sector will not have sufficient resources to effectively meet the government’s new social homes target while also raising standards.’

This could also lead to landlords selling off stock that has reached the end of its intended lifespan, say the MPs, ‘at a time when social housing is desperately needed’.

All of which leaves a series of trade-offs balancing three different interests: of existing tenants who rightly want improvements as quickly as possible; of social landlords acutely aware of their finances who say they need time and flexibility; and of families stuck in temporary accommodation or on waiting lists who are desperate for a social home.

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A flurry of detail but still no strategy

Posted: January 30, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Council housing, Decent Homes Standard, Energy efficiency, Housing associations, Housing conditions, Rents, Section 106, Social housing | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

After weeks and even months of significant announcements delayed and promised ‘in due course’ it feels as though, like buses, they have all arrived at once. 

From the Warm Homes Plan and energy efficiency to commonhold and leasehold reform, from the Decent Homes Standard to rent convergence and from Section 106 to a new social housing taskforce the list goes on and on. 

On social and affordable housing, the announcements are summarised in an update to last July’s plan for ‘a decade of renewal’.

The flurry of activity seems intended to clear the decks for the opening of bids for the Social and Affordable Homes Programme in February by giving providers increased certainty about their finances.

On housing in general, the common factors seem to be removing obstacles in the way of development and giving owners and tenants more control over their lives and better conditions.

In most of these decisions, the government has faced a choice between two or more competing views or interests. It has usually gone for the middle ground.

On rent convergence, for example, last year’s consultation asked whether below-formula social rents should increase by an extra £1 or £2 a week but social landlords were pressing for £3. 

In deciding on this, ministers had to weigh the costs to tenants and the Department for Work and Pensions against the positive impact on landlord investment in improvements and new homes and balance the interests of existing tenants against people waiting for a social home.

The decision to allow an extra £1 a week from April 2027 and £2 from April 2028 splits the difference but the delay means the extra income will be slow to arrive and in any case it will probably not be enough to make up for the rent cuts imposed in the 2010s.

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Under starter’s orders

Posted: January 19, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Housebuilding | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

With neat synergy, the housing secretary and one of his more notable predecessors are both boasting about their record using perhaps the most inaccurate housing statistic out there.

First Steve Reed threw his ‘build baby build’ cap into the air at the news of an increase in housing starts. 

‘Thanks to our changes to planning laws we’re now seeing the green shoots of recovery,’ he said, ‘with an 18 per cent increase in work starting on new homes compared to the previous year.’

Then Robert Jenrick, the Conservative defector to Reform, took time out from making other political news to boast about his record six years (and six housing secretaries) ago. 

‘When I was housing secretary, I felt passionately that we should get young people on to the housing ladder,’ he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg in an interview following his defection to Reform. ‘What did I do? I got housing starts in this country to the highest level in my lifetime. Way, way, way above what you see today under Steve Reed or Angela Rayner.’

Both boasts have a grain of truth in them – but both need to be accompanied by more than a few pinches of salt.

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