Does the Budget shift the dial on housing?
Posted: October 31, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Budget, Fire safety, Homelessness, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Rents, Right to buy, Social housing | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing.
A final verdict will have to wait for the spending review in the Spring but how should we assess the first Labour Budget for 14 years?
The answer of course depends on what you take as your starting point. Compared with the disastrous first Conservative Budget in 2010 or even the first Labour one in 1997, this one takes some definite steps in the right direction.
But does this Budget live up to Labour rhetoric about greater investment and long-term solutions. To what extent will it really ‘fix the foundations’ and deliver ‘the biggest boost to affordable and social housing for a generation’?
Here are 10 key areas that I was looking out for:
1) New social homes: The £500 million top-up to the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) briefed in advanceis welcome news but it must only be a down-payment on a far bigger increase for the next AHP after 2026.
It is at the lower end of expectations of up to £1 billion extra and it will not be enough to make up for a shortfall in delivery caused by construction cost inflation and other pressures on social landlords. The current AHP is on course to deliver between 110,000 and 130,000 affordable homes over five years rather than the 180,000 originally expected while need is estimated at 90,000 social homes a year.
All of which puts the 5,000 the government says will be generated by the top-up into perspective.
Details of ‘future grant investment’ in the next AHP will be set out in the spending review and will support a mix of tenures ‘with a focus on delivering homes for social rent’.
Read the rest of this entry »Time for a subsidy shift
Posted: October 21, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housing benefit, Social housing | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing
With the days counting down to the Budget and all eyes on the tax increases to come, you’d have to be quite an optimist to expect an immediate boost for housing.
There may be scope for redistribution of some existing budgets but the first fiscal event of the new government is taking place against a gloomy short-term backdrop, with cabinet ministers for unprotected departments reportedly protesting about the cuts they are being expected to take.
The real question for October 30 – and for the Spring spending review to come – is a more long-term one: a shift in thinking about the value of housing investment.
There have already been some hopeful signs on this, with chancellor Rachel Reeves said to be considering a shift in the measure of debt to take account of the value of the assets created by investment as well as the costs. This could create room for billions in extra public investment, but housing would have to join the queue alongside health, education, transport, prisons and all the other government priorities.
If you’re looking for reasons to invest in housing specifically, there is plenty of timely evidence in the new UK Housing Review Autumn briefing paper published this week.
Read the rest of this entry »Reeves raises expectations on investment
Posted: September 26, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Energy efficiency, Housebuilding, Social housing | Tags: Angela Rayner, Labour, Rachel Reeves | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing.
For the most part, this was a Labour conference of nudges and winks rather than major announcements.
That is no coincidence because major decisions across government are being left to the Budget and one-year spending review next month and the multi-year spending review to follow in the Spring.
So for all the debate at what looked like an unprecedented number of fringe meetings on housing in Liverpool, for all the promises from the conference podium of brownfield passports and help for homeless veterans and care leavers, there was comparatively little that signalled the direction the new government intends to take.
The one exception was not a surprise: the reinstatement by net zero secretary Ed Miliband of the 2030 target to bring all rented homes up to a minimum level of Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C by 2030.
The announcement reinstates an earlier target for Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards that was scrapped by Rishi Sunak and extends it to social and private rented homes
That will have major implications given that the costs of retrofitting social housing alone far exceed Labour’s scaled-back plans for green grants and loans.
Without a boost, that could accelerate the sell-off of older private rented stock and encourage social landlords to consolidate theirs, at the same time as it focusses their attention even more on improving their existing homes rather than building new ones.
On new homes, the big question for me is the relationship between Labour’s target of 1.5 million new homes in this parliament and its manifesto promise on affordable and social housing.’
Read the rest of this entry »The trouble with targets
Posted: September 20, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning, Section 106, Social housing, Wales | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing.
The trouble with targets
Housing targets concentrate minds in government and drive delivery but they also come with trade-offs attached.
As Labour gears up for its first party conference since gaining power, much of the attention will be on announcements that fill in the blanks in how it is going to achieve its manifesto target of 1.5 million new homes in this parliament.
Superficially unambitious – it’s no more than the 2019 Tory manifesto promise 300,000 of 300,000 new homes by the mid-2020s – it is actually a huge stretch, with ministers expecting no more than 200,000 net additional dwellings in this financial year as a starting point.
That will leave a growing shortfall to be made up in the later years of the parliament and could require more like 400,000 new homes a year to be built by the late 2020s.
Having a target in place is important because it drives activity within government, especially when it is backed by the rise of Labour yimbyism.
But a target does not guarantee delivery in itself, even with the magic added ingredient of planning reform.
Read the rest of this entry »The Grenfell Tower inquiry: truth, justice and change
Posted: September 11, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Fire safety, Grenfell Tower, Social housing | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing.
A week after the final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry it’s time to focus on the responses so far and what happens next.
Sir Keir Starmer made a dignified statement in the Commons in which he spoke directly to the Grenfell community: ‘I want to start with an apology on behalf of the British state to each and every one of you, and indeed to all the families affected by this tragedy. It should never have happened. The country failed to discharge its most fundamental duty to protect you and your loved ones—the people we are here to serve—and I am deeply sorry.’
We’ve heard prime ministers say things like this many times over the decades, sometimes after disasters, sometimes after scandals. The difference is that Grenfell was both.
For Grenfell United, publication of the report is ‘a significant chapter in the journey to truth, justice and change. But justice has not been delivered. The inquiry report reveals that whenever there’s a clash between corporate interest and public safety, governments have done everything they can to avoid their responsibilities to keep people safe. The system isn’t broken, it was built this way.’
All disasters have an element of scandal about them too. There were basic operational failures that led to them, often compounded by a cavalier attitude to health and safety and establishment resistance to justice for the victims.
Similarly, scandals like the Post Office and infected blood were systemic failures but also disasters that cost victims their livelihoods and their lives.
Grenfell combines the two: not an accident but an entirely preventable disaster; and a scandal that does not just implicate local and central government and the entire construction industry but also raises fundamental questions about societal attitudes towards social housing and the safety of most of the blocks of flats built during this century.
Read the rest of this entry »Pulling the policy levers
Posted: August 1, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housebuilding, New towns, Planning, Right to buy, Social housing | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing
The last day of term is traditionally a time when nothing much happens and we get set for the holidays to come.
Not so much for Angela Rayner. The deputy prime minister marked the last day in parliament before the summer recess this week with a flurry of announcements, guidance and consultation.
Most of these – planning reforms including a new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), a new towns taskforce, changes to the right to buy – were foreshadowed in the election campaign and early days of the new government.
However, both her written statement and what she outlined to MPs including some intriguing hints of changes that go well beyond supply and planning.
And there was also an important piece of context: Rayner said the government now expects to deliver just 200,000 new homes in England in this financial year. That is 100,000 fewer than the annual average needed to meet its target of 1.5 million and will ramp up the pressure in the later years of this parliament.
Read the rest of this entry »How does the King’s Speech measure up?
Posted: July 18, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Leasehold, Legal, Planning, Private renting, Section 21, Social housing, Temporary accommodation | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing.
Amid the excitement of the first Labour King’s Speech in 15 years, it may seem churlish to inject a note of scepticism.
The excitement lies in the prospect of planning reform to deliver more homes, the potential of more devolution in England, the promise of improved rights for private renters and the hope that we could at long last see the abolition of leasehold.
Nobody should under-estimate the potential of this programme to improve the lives of millions of private renters and leaseholders or the determination of the government to use its mandate to deliver more new homes.
Yes, we already knew all of this from Labour’s manifesto but hearing them in the King’s words amid the pomp and ceremony of the state opening of parliament begins their transition from promises on a page to action in the real world.
The scepticism comes from two directions. First, and most obviously, the closer we get to implementation of these reforms the more the details matter.
The background document has some of these but more will follow once the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, English Devolution Bill, Renters’ Rights Bill and Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill make their way through parliament over the next few months.
The second reason for scepticism is the hype that comes with it. ‘Take this paragraph from the prime minster’s introduction to the King’s Speech: ‘Too many people currently live with the threat of insecurity and injustice, and so we will make sure everyone can grow up in the secure housing they deserve. We will introduce tough new protections for renters, end no fault evictions and raise standards to make sure homes are safe for people to live in.’
The second sentence describes what the government will do for private renters. These are good but they do not come close to meeting the aspiration in the first.
A dose of high-flown rhetoric is perfectly understandable but Keir Starmer also made a point of stressing ‘patient work and serious solutions, rather than the temptation of the easy answer’.
So how does the King’s Speech measure up to that?
Read the rest of this entry »Optimism, realism and disorientation as Labour takes power
Posted: July 5, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Social housing | Leave a commentOriginally written as a column for Inside Housing.
Labour’s huge election victory is undoubtedly good news for housing but will it take this once-in-a-generation chance to prove that ‘change’ is more than just a slogan?
You’ll have to have worked in housing for more than 25 years to remember the last time Labour successfully regained power in 1997.
Then, as now, the party took over after a long period in which Conservative governments got to set the parameters of the housing system on everything from tax to investment and planning to benefits.
The Blair-Brown governments made solid progress on homelessness and decent homes and eventually boosted investment in new homes but they blew the chance to change things more fundamentally.
Keir Starmer takes over at a time when housing is significantly higher up the political agenda but the economic backdrop is far bleaker.
So how should we react to Labour’s stunning victory?
Read the rest of this entry »The mixed legacy of Michael Gove
Posted: May 27, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Fire safety, Leasehold, Planning, Private renting, Social housing | Tags: Michael Gove | Leave a commentOriginally 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.
Read the rest of this entry »Juggling without dropping the ball
Posted: May 8, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Decarbonisation, Fire safety, Housing associations, Housing finance, Rents, Social housing | Leave a commentOriginally 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.’
Read the rest of this entry »
Jules Birch 