Does the spending review live up to the hype?

Posted: June 12, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Fire safety, Homelessness, Housebuilding, Rents, Social housing | Tags: | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

This spending review represents a good start on housing – but it must only be a start. 

Highlights of the package delivered by chancellor Rachael Reeves on Wednesday included £39 billion over 10 years for the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) and a 10-year rent settlement of CPI plus 1 per cent for social landlords.

Then add a consultation on the return of rent convergence, £1 billon extra for cladding remediation and equal access to government funds, £2.5 billon in low-interest loans plus for social landlords. 

Stir and combine with £950 million for councils to increase the supply of temporary accommodation, £10 billion in financial transactions to boost private investment and more to come for infrastructure and land remediation in Cambridge and the new towns, and this looks like great work by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

But does the spending review really justify the headlines and is it really as ‘transformative’ as some in the sector are making out?

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What’s at stake in the spending review?

Posted: June 3, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Decarbonisation, Help to Buy, Homelessness, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Rents | Tags: | Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

With a week to go until the most consequential spending review for ten years, the Treasury is facing desperate last-ditch lobbying from departments that have yet to agree their settlement.

Last week’s public intervention by chief constables warning that the government will fail to meet its pledges on crime unless they get more cash is sign enough of that.

So too the leaked memo from deputy prime minister Angela Rayner setting out options for higher taxes that was inevitably followed by more leaks about her spending priorities.

As of this week, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) was said to be one of the departments yet to agree a settlement, alongside the Home Office, with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero just finalising one..

By contrast with previous spending reviews, housing starts with the advantage of having a politically powerful secretary of state in charge – and Angela Rayner has repeatedly promised ‘the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation’.

But the ‘biggest boost’ can mean many different things, some of them genuine, some of them not remotely up to the challenge of the moment.

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