Prime minister’s question time

Inside Housing: Why should social housing workers and their residents vote Labour?

Gordon Brown: Since 1997, the Labour government has placed the determination to ensure that everyone has access to a decent home at a price they can afford - whether they wish to buy or rent - at the heart of our policy programme. I am determined that over the next five years we maintain this commitment. I couldn’t find a similar commitment in the recent Conservative planning and housing draft manifesto.

We have acted to improve the quality of the social housing stock by ad-dressing the scandal of the £19 billion backlog in repairs and maintenance we inherited in 1997. We have acted to keep rents low. And we have established the Tenant Services Authority to ensure residents have enforceable rights and entitlements. And through the difficult economic downturn that has impacted the housing sector particularly hard, we have invested more money in social housing.

When I became prime minister, I said that housing was one of my top priorities. Through our actions, this government has delivered on this and shown where our priorities lie. I hope social housing residents and providers will judge Labour against this record.

IH What will you do personally during the election campaign to make housing a key election issue?

GB We signalled our commitment to support for first time buyers in our election pledges. And our manifesto will set out how we plan to address the challenges of delivering social housing in the coming years.

[Housing minister] John Healey has already made a significant announcement on reforming the housing revenue account, which will provide the opportunity for around 10,000 new council homes a year to be built by 2014/15, as well as maintain housing at the decent homes standard.

We also want to work with housing associations to ensure their independence is maintained and that they play a full role in delivering social and affordable housing in a fourth term Labour government. So, while we pledge to continue to give affordable housing high priority, we believe that housing associations can make better use of their resources and assets to help maintain supply.

We would like to see the sector use its assets and development capacities more efficiently. Through a combination of, for example, asset sales, better leveraging of balance sheets, greater efficiency in maintenance spending and innovative building methods, we believe there is significant scope to deliver more homes at lower grant rates. But I am clear that this new deal must be developed with the sector itself. We will, therefore, establish a review, chaired by the minister for housing and involving representatives of the housing association sector, the Homes and Communities Agency, local government and the construction industry to report in to the next spending review.

IH Under your premiership, house building has dropped to historic lows. Have you delivered?

GB Housing has been particularly affected by the global recession and overall, new starts have declined as a consequence. However, prior to the economic downturn, overall housing supply reached 207,500 homes in 2007/08. This is the highest rate of housing supply since 1977.

I ask that the government is judged on its actions when confronted with these unprecedented challenges. We have significantly increased the investment going into social housing. This additional £1.5 billion means we will be building 112,000 affordable homes over the two years to 2011.

IH Why was housing (together with the environment) one of just two areas singled out for cuts in last month’s Budget? Where do you expect the bulk to be made?

GB Other than reform to the housing and planning delivery grant, housing has not been identified for specific programme cuts in the Budget. Overall expenditure on housing has not been cut between 2009/10 and 2010/11. Expenditure has been re-profiled so as to provide targeted support for the housing sector when it was most needed. All decisions about future spending will be made as part of the next spending review.

IH How would a new Labour government help landlords fight anti-social behaviour more effectively?

GB In addition to the family intervention projects Challenge Fund, we are putting in place a new action team of anti-social behaviour experts and publishing new guidance on the tools and powers available to prevent and tackle ASB. [The idea is] to support and equip more landlords to reach the TSA standards of the best.

IH What has been Labour’s biggest achievement in housing? Where could it have done more?

GB I have already said how proud I am of the 1.6 million households who have benefitted from decent homes improvements and the difference we have made during the recession.

[These are among our] real achievements. But there is more to do. We need to deliver as much high quality housing in communities that people want to live in as we can. The housing association sector must continue to play a significant role here - and we want to ensure this through the new deal I mentioned earlier. But the success of the initial scheme has shown me that we should have freed local authorities up to deliver more new build housing earlier than we did.

IH Can you foresee a day when councils will build as many new homes as housing associations?

GB The reforms we have set out over the past year demonstrate that we believe local authorities have an important role to play in new build housing. We have built on the significantly over-subscribed local authority new build programme we launched last year (itself the largest council house building programme in more than two decades) with John Healey’s recent HRA announcement. By providing the opportunity for councils to build around 10,000 new homes a year by 2014/15, we are ensuring councils are playing an expanded role.

The government has also just launched a commission chaired by Lord Richard Best and made up of council chief executives, housing association chief executives and academics to assess the longer-term role of council new build. I look forward to receiving its conclusions in the summer.

IH How do you feel the Homes and Communities Agency and the Tenant Services Authority have been performing?

GB I am very pleased with the way both the HCA and the TSA have performed. They have both established themselves quickly within the sector as widely respected partners to local authorities, housing associations, developers and the wider sector.

The HCA demonstrated its value almost immediately - without a single housing and regeneration body, we could not have delivered the housing pledge as quickly as we did.

The TSA has also made a strong start under Peter Marsh. A Labour government would remain committed to the TSA and wouldn’t threaten the extra funding having an independent regulator guarantees from the private lending sector.

IH The Budget included a £250 million annual reduction to the housing benefit bill. If you win the election, will you cut the bill further?

GB Any future [housing benefit] reforms would include measures to improve fairness, address affordability and strengthen work incentives.

IH Last year, Inside Housing campaigned to improve gas safety in UK homes. What do you think about the aims of the campaign?

GB I recognise the considerable pain and suffering of those who have lost relatives and friends because of carbon monoxide poisoning and of those who continue to suffer the long-term health effects. It was important to further reduce the incidence of carbon monoxide poisoning which is why we acted by amending part J of the building regulations, which deals with combustion appliances, on 12 March.

IH As part of our ‘House Proud’ campaign our readers voted for this pledge to be included in parties’ election manifestos: ‘We will develop the funding models required to ensure that mass retrofitting of the existing housing stock can be commenced within three years.’ Will you include it in Labour’s manifesto?

GB I agree that retrofitting the existing housing stock is crucial if we are to meet our climate change targets. That is why the Labour government set out our ‘warm homes, greener homes’ strategy in early March.

Inside Housing and the Chartered Institute of Housing are running a campaign calling for greater recognition of the importance of housing, for more information see our campaign page.