You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Javid pledges ‘certainty’ on rent levels
Sajid Javid has promised “certainty” for housing associations on future rent levels.
Delivering his keynote speech to the National Housing Federation conference 2017, the communities secretary appeared set to announce a future rent settlement after rent cuts conclude in 2020.
But he stopped short, saying the government is still working on the detail of a deal. However he pledged the sector would get long-term certainty through the deal.
He told the audience: “I know you’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I’ve tried to do everything I can within government. It will be very, very soon and you will get the certainty you deserve.”
Mr Javid promised last week that a new formula would be set out “very, very soon”, but today’s announcement hinted at the kind of outcome that housing associations have been calling for.
READ MORE
He said: “You need certainty, you need clarity and you need it sooner rather than later. That’s why I have been pushing right across government as hard as I can to confirm the future formula for social housing rents.
“I would have liked to stand here today and tell you exactly what it’s going to be. I have to tell you that unfortunately the Ts are still being crossed and the Is are being dotted.”
In a question and answer session following the address, David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, called on Mr Javid to uphold the government’s original promise to return to a formula of consumer price index inflation plus 1% annual rises.
Mr Orr said: “The second half of what George Osborne said [in 2015] was, after four years of cuts, revert to rent policy. If government said we are going to do what we said we were going to do, people in this room would be very happy and we would get a lot of homes built.”
Mr Javid responded by saying the final settlement would likely “reflect what you just said”.
