Posted: May 29, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: The Housing Question |
My Substack newsletter this week is a wash-up on the last parliament. As the election campaign gathers pace, I ask how the government’s performance measures up against what it promised in its manifesto. Plus, which of the record number of MPs standing down, including many former housing secretaries and ministers, deserves the fondest farewell. You can read and subscribe to The Housing Question here.
Posted: May 27, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Fire safety, Leasehold, Planning, Private renting, Social housing | Tags: Michael Gove |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
Following his surprise decision to stand down as MP, Michael Gove leaves Westminster as probably the most important politician for housing in the last 14 years of Conservative rule.
As housing secretary since September 2021 (with a brief break for Liz Truss) he was in charge for some of the most consequential legislation of the whole period: the Building Safety Act 2022; Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023; and Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.
He also changed the terms of the debate on many issues, issuing public calls for more social housing in a way that would have been unthinkable for earlier Conservative ministers and speaking up for the rights of leaseholders, renters and tenants.
Yet for all that he remains something of an enigma. On a personal level, he was an able minister, open about Conservative failures and willing to engage with questions others would dodge, but he also bequeathed us Brexit chaos and never achieved one of the great offices of state.
The sense of two Goves carried on till the end: speaking to Rishi Sunak in the final Cabinet meeting before the election was called his message was ‘who dares wins’ but two days later it was ‘actually, not me’ as he stood down from his Surrey Heath constituency.
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Posted: May 23, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Leasehold, Private renting | Tags: Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act, Renters (Reform) Bill |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
And they’re off – but as the election campaign begins it’s easy to lose sight of what could get left at the starting gate.
An immediate consequence of Rishi Sunak’s decision to go for July 4 rather than an Autumn election is that two of the most important pieces of housing legislation in years look like they will run out of parliamentary time.
The Renters (Reform) Bill and Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill have passed all their stages in the Commons and most of them in the Lords.
In theory they could still be passed in stripped-down form as part of the wash-up process before parliament is dissolved on Friday provided both parties agree. However, as I’m writing this neither is currently listed in Lords business for today or tomorrow so the signs are not good.
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Posted: May 8, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Decarbonisation, Fire safety, Housing associations, Housing finance, Rents, Social housing |
Originally written as a blog for Inside Housing.
How long can you keep juggling before it all goes horribly wrong?
That’s the question for social landlords posed by a new report from the all-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee on the finances and sustainability of the social housing sector.
Juggling a couple of balls is simple. Three gets easier with practice. Four needs intense focus. Add more balls and external distractions and you risk dropping the lot.
The issues that need to be juggled are familiar ones: how do you continue to build new homes, decarbonise existing ones, fix fire safety problems and regenerate older stock when there is not enough grant to go around, construction, energy and insurance costs have soared and supposedly long-term rent settlements keep being revisited?
As the report points out, we are already seeing the results. Fiona Fletcher-Smith of L&Q told the committee that under the affordable housing programme that ended in 2021 it built 10,000 new homes in London but ‘this year in this programme we are bidding for 1,000. It is a dramatic drop.’
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Jules Birch 