Carol Hayton explains why Labour’s current housing policy will not resolve the housing crisis and why our model resolution includes the key policies necessary to begin to resolve it.
The process for the submission of amendments to the draft National Policy Forum documents has concluded. We now await, with extreme interest, the final NPF report, which will be agreed at the full NPF meeting in July. The content of this final report will indicate whether the NPF has any validity in terms of a process by which the wider Party can engage in Labour’s policy making policy process. Those of us who are concerned about the severe housing crisis, which affects millions of households, and impacts practically every area of the country, are trying hard to remain optimistic about this, but to be honest, on the basis of what we have seen of this year’s process so far, that’s quite a challenge.
A review of submissions to the policy forum website provide clear evidence of the growing call, from inside the party and beyond, for it to commit to action that will tackle the chronic affordability crisis. Its growing severity is abundantly clear from a review of the government’s own data, key points of which are highlighted below.
- According to the government’s official rough sleeping figures, over 3,000 people were sleeping rough across England on a single night in 2022, 79 % higher than the number recorded in 2010.
- The most recently published government figures, 2021/2022, show that 731,000 households were overcrowded. With social renters being the tenure most likely to be overcrowded at a rate of 8% in 2022.
- According to official statistics published by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in May 2023, there were 1.2 million households on local authority waiting lists in England on 31st March 2022, an increase of 2 % from the previous year.
- According to official statistics published by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in March 2023, the number of homeless families being housed in hotels and B&Bs was 1,210 between 1 July and 30 September 2022, up from 570 in the same period in 2021 and the highest since 2017.
- According to official statistics published by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in May 2023 101,300 households were in temporary accommodation at the end of December 2022, an increase of 5.2 % from the same date in 2021. This included 62,410 households with children, an increase of 6.6% from 2021.
- Figures published by the Ministry of Justice in February 2023 report that evictions from rental properties in England and Wales reached 5,409 between 1st October and 31st December 2022, an increase of 98% on the previous year.
Over recent years, as the crisis has worsened, key strategies to resolve it have been identified by the housing sector, homeless charities, academics, campaign groups and representatives of local and national government, including the select committee on housing. But the key proposals, around many of which there is considerable consensus, have been largely ignored by successive governments. This is despite the massively positive outcome they would deliver, not only in terms of ensuring that everyone has access to the housing they need, but in the broader economic context. Unite the Union made this point very clearly and succinctly in their submission to this year’s policy forum consultation;
“Inaction in addressing our housing crisis has multiple social and economic costs that will continue to worsen; while measures taken to fix our broken housing market can create a huge, nationwide economic boost, deliver better lives and be a major contributor to us reducing our carbon emissions as a country. This includes Labour continuing to support a mass investment and construction programme of council homes, with construction workers and apprentices directly employed and benefitting from industry collective agreements.”
The choice of successive governments to ignore the proposals submitted to them in favour of pursuing ineffective, sticking plaster policies, which at best tinker at the edges of the crisis and at worst exacerbate the problems, has resulted in a housing system that is completely dysfunctional. The result of that dysfunctionality is that more and more people are struggling to access a decent home, appropriate to their needs. As a result the call for action is now at maximum volume, with high levels of concern amongst the general public and a wide range of organisations pushing for policies that will fix the broken housing market.
Many policy proposals highlight the need to shift away from the disproportionate government support over recent years for home ownership to a housing strategy that focuses more on protecting renters and social housing. The proposals identify a clear social and economic need to restore security and affordability of housing to the millions of people who have no possibility of owning their own home. As Fran Boait from the campaign group Positive Money wrote in a recent article in the Guardian,
“The dysfunctional nature of our housing market can’t be fixed quickly or overnight, it’s intimately connected to our politics and culture. But since the last crash we’ve had more than a decade of missed opportunities when it comes to housing affordability, and it’s time for change.”
On the basis of current performance, it is clear that we are unlikely to see that change take place under a Tory government. Michael Gove was put in charge of solving the housing crisis in September 2021, he was generally considered to be the most able Tory Secretary of State of Housing for many years and has been in post ever since, apart from a short break between July and October 22.
Mr Gove has made a number of statements about the crisis that have been welcomed by the housing sector as indicating an acceptance of a need to take housing policy in a different direction. For example, in 2022 he said, “the availability of social housing is simply inadequate for any notion of social justice or economic efficiency.” Also in 2022, he was reported as admitting that that poor housing conditions and the social housing shortage across the country were a “public health issue”. This year in an introduction to a collection of essays published by the Conservative think-tank, Bright Blue, he referred to the the UK housing model as ‘broken’. He emphasised the need for more homes to be built to increase accessibility to home ownership and also commented :
“Every single person in this country, no matter where they are from, what they do or how much money they earn, deserves to live in a home that is decent, safe, secure and affordable…I am more committed than ever to building a modern, radical and successful conservative housing policy that works for everyone, whether they rent or own.”
Taken in isolation these are all worthy statements. However, as previously mentioned Mr Gove was put in charge of solving the housing crisis in September 2021, yet there is still no sign of anything that could be described as a modern, radical housing policy that works for all , despite his apparent commitment to delivering this. Far from it, the figures clearly demonstrate that the situation is getting worse, particularly for those at the sharpest end of the housing crisis.
Little wonder that even the chief executive of Bright Blue has been unable to conceal his frustration at policy statements that barely conceal a huge level of inertia and lack of political will to deliver. In his comments launching the essay collection, Ryan Shorthouse called for “genuinely affordable and appropriate housing …. Accessible to a much wider proportion of the population, especially younger generations and those on modest incomes”. He said “There is no silver bullet to fix the housing crisis… we need new, radical solutions now.” Mr Shorthouse made this comment following his decision last year to resign from his role as Chief Executive. In his resignation statement he said it was now clear that the party had “no inspiration, will or vision”, to fix the problems that had left millennials stuck in limbo.
This is an example of the growing frustration right across the political spectrum at the failure to resolve the chronic crisis of affordability. The demand for new, radical solutions to be delivered NOW is a symptom of that frustration. What so many people are looking for is some indication of a strategy to deal with the crisis, one that commits government funding, sets targets for delivery and outlines plans on how to achieve them. Experts in the housing world have provided plenty of information about the key challenges and how they can be met but this has largely been ignored by a government interested in delivering single sentence soundbites that can be repeated ad nauseum, and much less interested in giving genuine consideration to solutions to the country’s problems.
On reviewing Labour’s latest draft housing policy statement, our concern is that the urgent call for action will not be addressed by the next Labour government either. A wide range of submissions have been made to the National Policy Forum discussion process from party units and external bodies such as St Mungo’s homelessness charity, The Campaign for Protection of Rural England, Homeless Link. The draft document makes no reference at all to the specific recommendations made in these submissions, most of which reflect the consensus amongst organisations and individuals who are aware of the urgent need for action. There seems very little to distinguish between the vague acknowledgement of the problem and suggestion that something might be done, that the document contains, and the Tory’s vague acknowledgement of the problem.
Compare Michael Gove’s comments quoted above with the following extract from the draft Policy document:
“A home should be a place where people build a life and raise a family, but too often they are treated as a speculative financial asset. Labour’s approach will ensure a decent, secure and affordable home for everyone regardless of tenure.
A Labour government will support more families into home ownership, build more high-quality, genuinely affordable homes, including council homes, and make renting fairer and more secure.
Our plans will bring the dream of homeownership to millions more families, rebalancing the market towards working families. We will build more houses, reforming planning and spurring a new generation of locally led development corporations and we will build more genuinely affordable houses, including council houses. Labour will retrofit the UK’s draughtiest homes, making them warmer and cheaper to heat. The next Labour government will bring security and safety to renters and tackle the scourge of homelessness and rough sleeping.’
On the retrofitting point, when in the post of Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove spoke of the need to retrofit existing housing “particularly in some of the poorer areas of the country.”
So there’s not an awful lot to distinguish between these positions and arguably even less of an acknowledgement on the impact of the shortage of social housing in the Labour Party document than in statements made by Michael Gove. The reference to rebalancing the market in the NPF document extract seems to refer to home ownership rather than the more urgently required rebalancing that would see more focus and funding directed to genuinely affordable housing.
With no details of the numbers of homes they are committed to delivering or timescale for delivery, no commitment to funding, no acknowledgement that this is a crisis that needs to be resolved with a sense of urgency, it is not only difficult to distinguish between Labour’s level of commitment and that to the current Tory government, it is difficult to identify any real sense of engagement with the most severe aspects of the crisis.
Amendments to the documents have been made by a number of Party units, effectively repeating the submissions which were previously made and seemingly ignored. A strong effort has been made to try to ensure policy statements are more ambitious and robust, with clear key strategies. We hope that we will see some changes to the draft as a result, but, in the meantime, we are not going to wait quietly in anticipation of some improvement. This is too important an issue for that. We need to keep pushing for significant action that will make a significant difference.
To that end we are asking CLPs and other party units to push Housing back up the political agenda by submitting our model resolution. We want to ensure that Housing is restored to its rightful place at the top of the priorities ballot at the Annual conference in October and that we can once again make the case for action.
We recognise that there are many important issues that are of concern to members, but the broken housing model in this country is a factor in so many of these issues. So many could be resolved by improving the housing situation so that everyone has a decent home and, therefore, a better opportunity to improve their prospects for health, well-being and life chances. That’s why its so important that the next Labour government begins, from its first day in government, to start work in fixing the broken system.
We have set out the key actions that the next Labour government needs to take:
- Fund 150,000 social rent homes a year, including at least 100,000 Housing Revenue Account (HRA) council homes with secure tenancies;
- End “affordable rent” and fixed term tenancies;
- Fund the retrofitting of all council housing;
- Invest in Direct Labour Organisations to create well paid, unionised jobs and apprenticeships to deliver this;
- Abolish right to buy;
- Review council housing debt to address the under-funding of HRAs;
- Reintroduce rent controls;
- Compulsory registration and regulation of private rental homes, with high energy efficiency and quality standards;
- License landlords and agents, and increase funding for councils to regulate the sector;
- Empower councils to restrict, license and tax holiday homes and AirBnBs;
- Properly regulate temporary and supported accommodation.
It is widely recognised that these are key elements of the radical solution that is urgently needed to avoid worsening the already devastating social economic costs of the crisis. These actions will help to deliver the huge, nationwide economic boost and better lives mentioned in the UNITE submission to the NPF. These actions will deliver a decent and inclusive economy and they have they added advantage of helping to reduce our carbon emissions as a country. You can download our model resolution here.
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 