Barker: UK housing policy needs ‘coherence, clarity and consistency’

Economist Dame Kate Barker, the chair of Radix Big Tent Housing Commission and author of the Barker Review, has written an open letter to housing minister Matthew Pennycook asking the Labour government to provide “coherence, clarity and consistency”. Barker, alongside the commission, which comprises 15 experts from across the public, private and voluntary sectors has listed “urgent steps” Pennycook should implement to aid the housing crisis. These include establishing a cross-departmental implementation unit at the Cabinet Office that has strategic leadership responsibility and the ability to ensure policies are fully adopted across government departments. They also include reinstating the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit, dissolved in 2010, as it was “having a positive impact”. Barker also recommended that the minister establish a cross-party accord on housing, which recognises that four decades of “permacrisis” around housing delivery and affordability is unlikely to be reversed in a single parliament, and enable public land to be used more effectively for housing. She said that reform is needed in the current system of developer contributions through S106 and CIL, with a particular goal to deliver more affordable housing instead of implementing the proposed Infrastructure Levy. Overall, the letter listed 17 recommendations that the new government should implement. Barker said: “It is now 20 years since a previous Labour government commissioned me to lead a review of UK housing supply. Despite unusually strong support from many in the sector, a recent review by the Home Builders Federation showed that only 11 of the 36 recommendations made then are currently in place, with a further 10 having been only partially implemented and five having been implemented and then reversed. “Sadly, most indicators of housing market health are worse today than they were 20 years ago. ”In particular, there has been a failure to link new housing with infrastructure delivery and also, since the financial crisis, a further decline in the supply of new social rent homes.” Click here to read the full letter >> Photo © Nick Cunard/Shutterstock