Exit Rayner, enter Reed

Posted: September 8, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Home ownership, Housebuilding, Social housing | Tags: Angela Rayner, Steve Reed |Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Angela Rayner is a huge loss for the Labour government and the country but arguably an even bigger loss for housing.

The housing secretary had to go after the standards advisor ruled that she breached the ministerial code by underpaying the stamp duty on her new flat, even if the breach seems inadvertent and minor by comparison with previous tax errors by ministers. 

Keir Starmer has lost someone who, after a difficult start, became a key partner on the left of the Labour Party as deputy leader and deputy prime minister.

Much like John Prescott in the early days of the Tony Blair government, her presence reassured Labour supporters that despite its modernising rhetoric the government had the interests of working people at heart.

Housing has lost a powerful voice at the top of government, someone who was in charge long enough to secure a favourable settlement in the spending review (even if it did not quite live up to her hype).

Would MHCLG have achieved as much without her? Housing might still have been a relative priority but probably not, I’d say.

Supporters of social and council housing – and those who need it – have lost an ally who knew its value from her own experience. 

As she put it in her resignation letter: ‘I would never have become deputy prime minister if not for decisions taken by the last Labour government, giving me a council house to support me, Sure Start to help raise my kids, and the security of a minimum wage – and I can only hope that the changes I made in government will have the same impact for young girls growing up on council estates like I did.’

Her back story is so unusual and compelling that it’s easy to romanticise it but it’s that authenticity that was at heart of the best tribute to her that I’ve read so far – from Kimia Zabihyan of Grenfell Next of Kin about the sensitive way she handled the decision about the future of Grenfell Tower. 

We will never know what else she might have done at MHCLG but her resignation leaves it in a weaker position against future demands from the Treasury and probably changes the balance between its two principal aims: delivering 1.5 million new homes by the end of the parliament at the same time as (a direct quote from her that made it into the manifesto) ‘the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation’.

Those aims should complement each other but there is also an underlying tension between them over which takes priority.

And the early signs are that the first will be top of the agenda of new housing secretary Steve Reed. 

The Telegraph reports this morning that he told civil servants that his mantra was ‘build, baby build’ and that he intended ‘to move on to the next stage in unleashing one of the biggest eras of building in our country’s history’.

He was previously environment secretary (he was keen on building in that job too) and had a brief spell as shadow secretary for communities and local government, but not housing, between 2020 and 2021.  

He is seen as a key ally of Keir Starmer and helped to launch the Labour Together project with the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. 

As such (and this may be unfair) it’s hard to resist the temptation to see him as the equivalent of one of the succession of Blairite communities secretaries who followed John Prescott under the last Labour government. 

The most immediate impact of the reshuffle could be felt elsewhere in his new department: the sacking of local government minister Jim McMahon, who seems to have been replaced by Alison McGovern, raises questions about the future of the reorganisation and devolution.

On the housing side of MHCLG, Matthew Pennycook thankfully looks to be continuing as housing minister, providing vital continuity in the legislative and policy agenda. 

Building safety minister Alex Norris was moved to the Home Office and two new junior ministers (Miatta Fahnbulleh and Samantha Dixon) replace him plus the vacant position left after the resignation of homelessness minister Rushanara Ali.  

The decisions will now come thick and fast for them and the new housing secretary: how to accelerate progress on building safety, how to cut homelessness and how to establish new towns will all be key questions alongside how to build new homes. 

More broadly than that, the Treasury is lining up changes to property taxation (ones involving stamp duty may now be more difficult) but will they be good for housing rather than just raising revenue?

And the Budget in November will also include decisions on issues like local housing allowance that are not part of his brief but still have a direct impact on it. 

A hint of Steve Reed’s priorities comes from ‘a source at the housing department’ quoted in the Telegraph: ‘The Labour Government inherited the worst housing crisis in living memory, with a shortage of homes creating soaring house prices that block families from their dream of home ownership.’

Note the lack of any nod to affordable or social housing: ‘own, baby own’ to go with ‘build, baby build’ seems to be the subtext.

One of his first acts will be to meet developers and housebuilders to discuss the next phase of planning reform. 

His initial analysis is this: ‘The housing secretary has identified that there are believed to be up to 1.4 million homes that have been granted permission but have not yet been built. He believes these projects are the key to reaching the1.5 million homes target by the end of this parliament.’

This is simplistic and wrong and represents a worrying misunderstanding of how planning and housebuildiing work.

Housebuilders will no doubt give him plenty of ideas about which bits of red tape they would like to be cut , some of them sensible, some self-serving.

But the truth is that there is no way he will be able to deliver 1.5 million new homes by 2029; a shortfall in Labour’s first year means he already needs 325,000 a year for the rest of the parliament. 

Rather than tilt at windmills, what he can do is put the housing delivery system on a footing to deliver sustainably for the long term. The key to that is to ensure a substantial contribution from social and affordable housing, more new homes that people can afford to rent as well as buy.  

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