Low priority: The frequency with which housing ministers come and go is one indicator of how low the issue stands in the government’s agenda. Another is the vagueness of all the mainstream parties’ housing policies. Graham Norwood reports
If it’s quiet in the office over the summer, why not play Name the Housing Minister? But be quick. There may be another one along soon.
In 12 years of New Labour, there have been 10 housing ministers, including John Prescott’s “supremo”role at the now-defunct Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Since Gordon Brown entered 10 Downing Street, a typical housing minister’s lifespan has fallen sharply.Caroline Flint and Margaret Beckett lasted just nine months each.
Now it is the turn of John Healey, who may be in the role for 12 months at most, given that a general election must be held by 4 June 2010, and may well take place earlier.
Yolande Barnes, head of Savills’ residential research and one of the country’s most respected analysts, has frequent contact with ministers, MPs and their teams. She says: “It’s not just politicians, it’s civil servants too. There’s an extraordinary turnover. They learn about housing and planning, but then they move on almost immediately. It’s a sign the subject isn’t taken seriously.”
The problem of housing and planning’s low political priority is not restricted to Labour. Most parties say their policies (below) will be fleshed out before thegeneral election, but for the momenttheir aspirations seem, at best, general with few details.
Labour
– Target of 240,000 homes paand 3m by 2020, but these need revision
– Some 45,000 social housing units built annually
– Uncertain future for Community Infrastructure Levy
– Continued support for eco-towns
– Local councils “providing leadership in meeting the housing needs of their community”- which may mean council housing
– Emphasis on “help packages”,such asHomeBuy Direct, Mortgage Rescue schemes and funding registered social landlordsto buy unsold private stock
– Likely review of density planning
Conservatives
– Introduce incentives to encourage communities to agree tohomes being built
– Change PPG 3 pro-apartmentrules on density “as a matter of urgency”
– Scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers on homes up to £250,000
– Abolish HIPs
– Make it easier for social tenants to “own or part-own their homes”
Liberal Democrats
– Set national targets to cut carbon dioxideemissions from UK homes by 80% by 2050, including further tightening of energy-related Building Regulations
– Communities “set free” to make planning decisions ongreen space
– Increasesocial housing and releasepublic land to community land trusts
– Reform VAT to encourage developers to repair and re-use empty buildings and brownfield land
– Make planning permission a requirementbefore mainstreamproperties can become holiday homes in tourism areas
Green Party
– More social housing and support for co-ops and co-housing
– Improve energy-efficiency, build-quality of homes, and environmental impact assessments for greenfield proposals
– Increasetenantprotection “by tightening rules on unscrupulous landlords”, and no transfers of council estate management to arms-length bodies
Scottish National Party
– Funds forRSLs and councils for more building,better management
– Cut VAT on building repairs and improvements to 5%
– Support “help”packages such asthe Homeowners’ Support Fund
– Extendopen market shared equity schemes
Plaid Cymru
– Simplify planning system and encourage low-carbon housing
– Increasefunding and assistance for RSLs to buy unsold private stock
– Cut VAT on building repairs and improvements to 5%
– Considerlocal authority mortgage schemes to help would-be buyers.
“The words ‘get real’spring to mind,” says Savills’ London director, Dominic Grace. “So many policies seem to be vote-winning soundbites that havenot been stress-tested to ascertain the cost to the devastated public purse.”
Most industry leaders agree, saying that generalised long-term aspirations should come onlyafter specific short-term measures,such asrestoring mortgage market liquidity -“Little progress has been made in creating a robust policy for reform,” says Andrew Pratt of Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord -as well as helping first-time buyers and providing much more money to recapitalise projects.
Despite historic links between the residential industry and the Conservatives, not everyone is keen on Tory policies to loosen targets and allow more local input onplanning and housing priorities.
“The industry will do well to remain very wary if all targets and housing land supply requirements are to be abandoned,” warns Chris Tinker, managing directorof Crest Nicholson’s regeneration wing. He says Labour’s passion for targets and government-imposed performance criteria for councils meant planning permissions did at least happen, “albeit at a very high cost, with great uncertainty and over too long a period”.
Knight Frank residential researcherJon Neale says the Tories’ desire to scrap PPG 3 guidelines may be misplaced. “A lot of people blame them for the glut of apartments but, ultimately, that was driven by buy-to-let and bulk purchasing for the investment boom, which meant developers maximised units on sites.”
The government’s move to consider build-to-rent as a partial solution to the housing shortage gets a thumbs-up from Nick Jopling of CB Richard Ellis, which has been championing the concept. “The Homes and Communities Agency’s recent request for expressions of interest by funds and institutions willing to help develop a professional, purpose-built residential rented sector would seem to be a genuine effort by the administration to advance this sector,” he says.
But others want more exactitude from the parties, with less reliance on generalised mantras urging more social and eco-housing, and faster planning decisions, without specifying how they happen.
“New homes that meet realistic codes for sustainable homes should benefit from meaningful incentives like no stamp duty, reduced rates and better mortgage deals from lenders, who should recognise that homes with appreciably lower outgoings should be able to support a higher loan-to-value rate,” says Savills’ Grace.
Housing market commentator Henry Pryorcalls for redundant public land to be released. Housebuilding costs have changed little over 25 years, except for land values, he says, adding:”I would clamp down through the tax system on the cost of building land, on land with consent that’s being sat on, and on empty properties.”
There is no shortage of ideas in the industry and, with the fate of the government likely to dominate the news agenda in the months ahead, more ideas are likely to emerge. The big question is whether the political parties will listen and take them on board- and if they do, will individual housing ministers be around long enough to implement them?
For the record, the housing ministers to have held office since Labour came to power in 1997 are:
1997 (when the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions still existed) Hilary Armstrong was housing minister until
1999 Nick Raynsford
2001 Lord Falconer
2002 saw the creation of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, with John Prescott holding responsibilities for strategic housing and planning, with
2002 Lord Rooker as housing minister
2003 Keith Hill
2005 Yvette Cooper was housing minister until January 2008, during which time the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister morphed into the Department for Communities and Local Government
January 2008 Caroline Flint becomes housing minister
October 2008 Margaret Beckett
June 2009 John Healey becomes the latest housing minister
