Posted: January 19, 2026 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housebuilding | Tags: Robert Jenrick, Steve Reed |
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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Posted: September 8, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Home ownership, Housebuilding, Social housing | Tags: Angela Rayner, Steve Reed |
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.
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Jules Birch 