You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
The Conservatives have offered more of the same on housing. That is not enough
The Conservative manifesto leaves them isolated as the only major party not committing to new social rented housing at scale. But a pledge of more of the same does not go far enough, writes Peter Apps
The message from the Conservative manifesto is that the party believes it has the housing crisis fixed.
Last week’s manifesto was extraordinary on housing, in that it did little more than pledge a continuation of the existing approach – rather than any meaningful increase in the building of new homes.
For better or worse, previous manifestos have offered the prospect of serious change: Theresa May promised a new generation of council houses in 2017 while David Cameron promised a wholesale shift to homeownership in 2015.
Boris Johnson has done neither. Instead, his manifesto promises a total of one million homes by 2025 and a renewal of the Affordable Homes Programme.
This is no more and no less than a promise to do in the next five years precisely what was done in the last.
READ MORE
So will more of the same solve the housing crisis? For this to be the case we would need to be travelling in the right direction now.
Perhaps the starkest evidence that we are not is that across the past five years, with a million new homes built, the number of households in temporary accommodation has grown by 31% to 84,740.
Among these households are 126,020 children. This is almost double the figure from 2010.
These numbers speak of a failed housing market, far more clearly than housebuilding statistics or rates of homeownership.
The consequences of an extra 60,000 children in temporary accommodation will ripple out across society for years to come. It is an issue which must be viewed as an urgent crisis in need of a solution – wherever you sit on the political spectrum.
What sort of solution may work? Over the past year there has been an emerging consensus: many more homes for social rent.
Shelter called for 3.1 million social rent homes over 20 years. The National Housing Federation’s election campaign, which Inside Housing wholeheartedly backs, calls for 145,000 affordable homes a year with 90,000 of them for social rent.
This is reflected in the other manifestos of the other parties: the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Green Party have all targeted at least 100,000 social rent homes a year by the end of their first term.
The Conservatives, who on the basis of current polling are cruising towards forming the government to take us to 2025, are isolated on this issue. They must now ask themselves: do they want the legacy of their next five years in office to be more children without a home of their own? Or do they want to start bringing that number down?
Conservative governments of the past have committed to social housing at scale. It does not have to be viewed as a politically partisan issue.
The current leader has canvassed votes at this election on the basis of a promise to “unleash the potential” of Britain, once his microwave meal Brexit pings.
If new social rent housing is not a part of that plan, much of that potential will stay locked up inside cold B&Bs.
Peter Apps, deputy editor, Inside Housing
More on the general election 2019
General election 2019: Conservative housing pledges
- To build at least a million homes over the next five years
- To extend the housing association Right to Buy pilot currently being run in the Midlands to other areas
- To renew the Affordable Homes Programme in the Spring Statement
- New “First Homes”, which will be sold at a 30% discount to first-time buyers – apparently modelled on David Cameron’s Starter Homes pledge from 2015
- Continue the roll-out of Universal Credit, but "do more make sure that it works for the most vulnerable"
- To ensure infrastructure, such as GPs and schools, is provided before new housing is built
- To give local communities the power to write design standards
- A continued commitment to Theresa May’s promise to end ‘no-fault’ evictions
- A new market for “lifetime” fixed-rate mortgages, which will come with 5% deposits
- “Lifetime” deposits for the private rented sector, allowing renters to move the same deposit to a new tenancy when moving home
- A Social Housing White Paper, which was originally due in Spring 2019
- To simplify shared ownership by setting a single standard for all housing associations
- An “accelerated” green paper on planning, aimed at speeding up the planning process
- Reforming the Housing Infrastructure Fund to provide greater flexibility to Homes England
