Charm offensive

Brandon Lewis had just faced up to the unenviable task of facing the wrath of the audience at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s (CIH) annual conference in Manchester.

The Right to Buy extension has dominated conference talk like few other policies over the last three days, and Mr Lewis was presumably expecting a rough ride.

But he came with a message to deliver in his speech: are you, as a sector, really prepared to take a stand against something tenants want?

‘I know these changes will be challenging for housing associations, but I also know they care deeply about their tenants,’ he said.

‘It’s for the sector to decide whether or not it wants to be part of helping people who want to be on that step ladder into homeownership.’

He was not willing to give any further detail around the much maligned policy and he refused to answer questions about whether it would apply to grant-free homes in response to a direct question.

‘You’re going to have to be a bit more patient [and wait for the Housing Bill],’ he said.

He did, however, say he was ‘confident the sector would help make it work’ – the clear hint being that the best place for landlords right now is inside the proverbial tent with the proverbial bodily function going out.

He was also keen to deliver the positive messages the government stresses on its housebuilding record. The various affordable homes programmes his department runs have delivered 170,000 homes in the last parliament, and will – he hopes – deliver 275,000 in the next.

On this point, he referred to ‘critics who were wrong to claim the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) would not work’. It was a veiled, or not so veiled, suggestion that many of the same voices are now attacking Right to Buy.

On the slightly more tricky question of whether the AHP will come under George Osborne’s knife, he said the 2015/20 commitment is not going to be shaken, but he did accept there may be cuts further down the line.

However, it was Right to Buy that most of the audience wanted to talk about. Mr Lewis, when pressed by the audience, pledged the homes sold would be replaced at a ratio of one-for-one, but also claimed the government is currently providing replacements at a level of one-to-five – a figure apparently contradicted by the numbers released by his department this morning.

But when a delegate from a local authority said it was government red tape holding the replacements back, he invited them to meet with him to discuss their concerns further.

It was this attitude that earned him the ‘better than Shapps’ review. The sector may dislike his policies, but they warmed to the fact that he was willing to stand up, take a good grilling over them and maybe – just maybe – listen.