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Archbishop of Canterbury calls for national body to tackle ‘corrosive’ housing crisis
The Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for a national body modelled on the current Climate Change Committee that would provide independent scrutiny and technical expertise on housing policy in England.
Along with a housing strategy committee, Justin Welby, part of a coalition of Church of England, the Nationwide Foundation and housing experts, is also calling for a long-term strategy to tackle the housing crisis and “provide affordable, safe, secure and quality homes for all”.
The call comes in a new report developed by the coalition, called Homes for All: A Vision for England’s Housing System.
It criticised decades of “piecemeal, short-term, party political approaches” to housing policy for deepening the housing crisis, “harming our health and well-being and stunting social and economic growth”.
According to the report: “Taking a long-term view to England’s housing is essential because major policy decisions have lasting impacts.
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“With the right action and leadership, we can transform England’s failing housing system to deliver homes that work for everyone – housing that prevents other problems, reduces the fiscal burden and inspires major benefits to our economy and society.”
It said: “We have a moral duty to ensure that all households have access to affordable, safe and quality homes.”
Mr Welby, who launched the report in the House of Lords on Tuesday, said: “Everyone should have a home that is comfortable and safe and in a thriving community where they can flourish.
“But for many people in England, home means something very different. It is somewhere that is often expensive or temporary, insecure or unhealthy.
“These problems are blighting the lives and futures of millions of people, and we all have a moral responsibility to put it right.
“We must end the short-termism that is having a corrosive effect on our society and our economy.”
It comes after the G15 called on the government to launch an affordable housing commission earlier this year. It said an “expert body” should be created to end the problem of “short-termism” that has “dominated” housing policy.
The coalition’s new report is supported by the National Housing Federation, New Economics Foundation, Crisis, the British Property Federation, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Housing Forum.
It aims to define what is meant by ‘good homes’, an ‘effective housing market’, a ‘well-functioning housing system’ and ‘effective housing policy-making’. It set out 25 key outcomes for those areas. These include:
- People will live in homes of high minimum standards that give them stability and security, are adaptable and suitable for different housing requirements
- People will have genuinely affordable decent housing choices open to them throughout their life course, regardless of their household type or size
- The different parts of the housing system – from rental sector to construction and social housing – will work together rather than against each other
- Housing will complement other vital systems such as health care, social care, finance and social security
According to the report, work to deliver the systemic change needed to address issues, such as the huge number of homeless households in temporary accommodation, will take until 2050, but it highlighted some immediate priorities for the next parliament.
These include delivering on the housing supply target of at least 300,000 new homes each year and ensuring that a maximum of 50,000 households are in temporary accommodation at any one time.
The next administration must improve affordability and quality standards of our homes by the end of the parliament to ensure that no more than one in 10 households lives in a home that does not meet the Decent Homes Standard.
The report asked that no household on average income or below has to pay more than 35% of their disposable income on direct housing costs to secure a home of an acceptable standard.
The report suggested that giving it access to powers similar to those of the ‘new town development corporations’ of the 1960s and 1970s. A single statutory non-departmental body should “lead on delivery of the shared vision and promote collaborative working between national and local levels of government and across departments and sectors”, it said.
While the housing strategy committee would provide annual reports to parliament on progress and to hold the government to account, the coalition said a delivery body is also needed to “help turn the vision into reality”.
The delivery body would work across different types of housing tenure and with local authorities to provide “greater coherence and coordination of implementation of housing policy”.
Samantha Stewart, interim chief executive of the Nationwide Foundation, said: “Homes are the foundations for our lives.
“We need to stop fixing the cracks in this piecemeal fashion. By overhauling our housing system with a long-term vision, and the means to follow through on it, we can restore the solid base that our society is built on.”
A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “We are on track to build one million homes in this parliament, backed by billions of pounds worth of investment.
“The highest annual rates of housing supply over the past 30 years have all been delivered since 2018, and our long-term plan for housing will ensure we build even more of the right homes in the right places.”
