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‘Everybody wants more money,’ says housing minister to pleas for social housing funding
“Everybody wants more money,” said the housing minister in response to calls for increased funding for housing associations.
Rachel Maclean made the jovial remark after her keynote speech closing the Housing 2023 conference in Manchester. “We will always back housing associations,” she added.
Asked if higher grant levels were needed to ensure housing associations keep building homes, Ms Maclean called Homes England’s £7.5bn Affordable Homes Programme “very significant”, and said “I speak to housing associations all the time, they’re vital partners.”
Journalist Gaby Hinsliff, who hosted the session, stated: “I think what they seem to be saying is they’d like more money, not just support.”
To which Ms Maclean replied: “Oh, well, everybody wants more money.”
Housing associations currently face huge financial pressure to spend more on repairs, fire safety, decarbonisation and new build, with costs and interest rates rising.
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Social landlords have recently seen their credit ratings slashed as a result of the impact on their financial position and have been lobbying the government for more funding.
Ms Maclean said: “We would always look to allocate more and we all know the economic times we’re in. But we will always stand up for championing the sector and trying to pull down more money from Treasury to get more homes built.”
In her speech, the housing minister reiterated that the government was committed to its target of building 300,000 homes a year and to a new Infrastructure Levy to replace Section 106 agreements.
She said that annual housing supply was up 10% compared with the previous year, with over 232,000 net additional homes delivered in 2021-22.
More than 2.2 million homes have been delivered since April 2010, she said, while 54,000 homes were started last year thanks to funding schemes from Homes England and the Greater London Authority.
Ms Maclean also said it was right for the government to ask landlords to cap rent rises, adding “we do have a housing benefits bill that is much too high”.
The power to increase Local Housing Allowance lies with the Treasury, she said, adding: “The nature of government means this decision is not for me as housing minister… but it’s a discussion that I have all the time with my colleagues in Treasury.”
Asked if she agreed with housing secretary Michael Gove’s assessment that faulty government guidance contributed to the Grenfell tower fire, she said: “Of course, yes. There were mistakes made, and we’ve had to learn from those and put in place better regulations.”
