Housing minister Gavin Barwell has said he will try to “hold policy stable” for as long as he can after the housing white paper reforms are delivered despite political pressure to regularly “drip feed announcements”.
“If there’s one thing that’s in the white paper that if I went back and wrote it all again I’d like to give more attention to, it’s what we’re going to do once we finalise proposals,” he said today at the British Property Federation and Planning Officers Society third annual planning conference.
“I want to try and hold policy stable for as long as I can. Now I’m going to have a really hard time doing that because I’ve got a secretary of state and a prime minister that I know when party conference comes around will want to announce something.
“And that’s how politics works, and politics works by regular drip feed announcements. But what everybody who came to my office said to me is government constantly changing policy does not help anyone build more homes. So I’m going to try my best to try and hold policy steady.”
Asked by EG whether Brexit negotiations could delay the introduction of reforms proposed in the white paper, he said he hoped government could still bring forward the “vast majority” in the next two years.
“There’s no doubt that the decision made on the 23 June is going to have profound implications for the workload that the government’s got, and I am clear that this area that I’m responsible for is a real priority.”
He said that while some things in the white paper would require legislation through a bill, some policies can be brought forward through the National Planning Policy Framework and the Budget.
He added: “I think there’s real potential to see how we can talk to some of the members of parliament through the private members’ ballot and see if some of the individual propositions we could progress in that way.”
Asked by EG whether he expected any civil servants at the Department of Communities and Local Government could be lost to the Department for Exiting the European Union, he said he did not have an answer to the question.
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“But I would have thought given the priority of the government’s attachment to housing, that they’re going to want more people working in that particular area,” he said.
He added: “One of the reasons I’m very fortunate is I’ve got a secretary of state and a chancellor and a prime minister all of whom are really personally committed to this, and that’s a lucky position for a housing minister to be in.”
The housing white paper consultation ends in May. Barwell said he particularly wants to encourage feedback on whether he’s got the right balance of measures to improve the planning system while also introducing punitive measures to hold developers and councils to account on housing delivery.
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