Labour’s new West Midlands mayor: ‘My focus is on social rent’

Crucially, for the first time, the winner will have newly devolved affordable homes powers to help them accomplish this. Central government has given the region a £400m transitional affordable homes settlement until 2026, after which the metro mayor will have full control over the affordable homes programme for the area.

“I plan to use those powers and those resources to have the biggest social housing development programme we’ve seen for 40 years in the West Midlands,” says Mr Parker.

His manifesto promise is to build 2,000 social rent homes a year by 2028 (300 more than Mr Street’s pledge of 1,700). He says this will add up to 20,000 in total by the end of the decade.

“My primary focus will be on social [rent], and I’ll tell you why,” he says. Most housing associations have already got large-scale programmes of affordable. And we’ve got 64,000 people on waiting lists for social housing, and 20,000 families in temporary accommodation. 

“So my focus is changing those metrics as soon as possible and meeting need where it’s most acute.”

If he is unable to use all the resources “because of delivery times and other constraints, we’re happy to fund affordable [rent]”, he says. “I don’t want to get in a position like Street has, where there’s a risk of unused funds going back to government.” 

The Labour campaign estimates Mr Street has not spent £250m of his current interim affordable homes allocation. “To avoid that going back to government, I want to deploy that as an absolute priority,” says Mr Parker. 

“If I get elected, I’ll be meeting housing associations in the first week to talk to them about how I can get that into their current programmes to help them convert as much affordable housing they’re building into social housing.” If his assumptions are right, he thinks that unused money could contribute to an additional 5,000 units of social rent.

Does he feel a national social rent target set by Westminster would help his delivery ambitions? “I can’t say too much for the Tories because they’ve not shown any interest or appetite, or conviction, or commitment to it,” he says, but Labour is “very keen to look into devolving more, or if not all, of Homes England’s regional resources to mayoralties”. If both he and a Labour government are elected, he says, there is the potential to double his target number of social rent units.

Will he get behind Inside Housing’s Build Social campaign, which is calling for political parties to commit to building 90,000 social rent homes a year over the next decade in England? “I’m not sure I’d get behind your target at this point, but I’m very happy to get behind a target.

“The issue to me is if I’ve got the resources that are devolved to me… that’s the best way I can meet the needs of the people of the West Midlands.”

Mr Parker worked for the professional services giant PwC for 26 years, during which he led the team that set up the West Midlands Combined Authority in 2016. It was “one of my main motivations” for running for mayor, he says.

“I worked with the chief execs and the council leaders to broker the deal, to have governance arrangements and help on the first devolution deal.” Having done that, however, “the hopes that we delivered as a result of that hadn’t materialised”.

“Despite what Street says about the only region meeting its housing targets, we’ve got a chronic shortage of affordable housing, and he hasn’t delivered social housing,” he says. “I’m standing on a completely different programme, with a very different set of priorities around council housebuilding”.

One housing issue that divides England’s metro mayors is private sector rent controls. Although mayors are not able to set them, leaders such as Sadiq Khan in London and Andy Burnham in Manchester argue they should be given the power to intervene amid a cost of living crisis. Mr Street and Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire see the policy as a step too far.

Where does Mr Parker stand? “I’m not sure I want to impose rent controls,” he says, “but I do want to crack down on rogue landlords and the increasing number of private sector landlords that are housing people in unfit properties, charging too much for poor-quality stuff.

“So I’m looking for a landlord register, and I’m more interested in powers where I can intervene and stop some of those landlords letting properties that are not fit for habitation.”

A YouGov poll on 29 April deemed the West Midlands race “too close to call”, with 41% of respondents saying they intend to vote for Mr Street while 39% say they will back Mr Parker. Whoever wins on Thursday, Labour’s challenge on housing means the next leader of the region has made a firm commitment to building more social housing.

Click here to read our interview with Andy Street, Richard Parker’s rival for the West Midlands mayoral seat.