Exit Rayner, enter 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.