Top official outlines scope of government’s 10-year housing plan

She said: “Looking ahead to the Spending Review that will happen in the spring, that will be the opportunity to set out the really long-term picture for housing and for investment over the next 10 years.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of people about what people would like to see in that strategy, what’s important for investors… and I hear three things.

“There’s been too many policy changes that have created a lot of uncertainty. There’s quite a lot of regulatory uncertainty [in] things like building remediation and other areas. And our partners lack the capacity to attract international investment.”

Later she added: “Those are the things that I would like to try and fix in this 10-year strategy. I’d like to give investors certainty, both in terms of policy and regulation, and make this investment in the housing market something that you could rely on. It will give you certain returns and will be a proper ethical investment.

“If we have that wrong as a premise, now is your opportunity to tell us all and make sure we can get it right for next year.”

On Monday, Inside Housing and the National Housing Federation (NHF) launched a series of opinion pieces to inform the long-term housing strategy.

In the first article, Kate Henderson, chief executive of the NHF, wrote how the plan must include regeneration of ageing homes and measurable targets for improving affordability and quality, addressing homelessness and climate change.

At the panel on Monday, Ms Key said that lack of investment in housing was having “profound social impacts in terms of people’s access to safe, secure, decent housing”.

“The UK really needs this investment,” she said. “We now basically have the lowest levels of investment in Europe in our housing market; we have the lowest amount of housing per capita of any European country. If you look at 2022 housing starts, we were the lowest country in Europe bar Italy and Latvia. It really is not looking good, and we do need to turn that around.”

Ms Key was joined by Tim Newns, a managing director of the government’s Office for Investment, who said there was a £10bn institutional investment opportunity for affordable housing.

“It’s £1bn at the moment, predicted to rise to £5bn in the next five years, but we’ve got to understand how to get that to £10bn over the next five to 10 years,” he said.