Laura Kuenssberg: Angela Rayner and Keir Starmer want more housing
BBC“We have been looking forward to this battle since the morning after the election,” said a senior government source who is linked to the government’s changes to the plan.
Ministers are ready to accept political rivals who do not want to accept the government’s new housing goals; prove to the state that Labour does want more people to own a house so that more voters can get safe, warm, permanent homes in that parliament.
Statistics from a snowstorm show how difficult it is to buy a home if you can afford it, or if you have trouble making a living, finding a decent accommodation.
Just this week, House prices hit recordAccording to Halifax, one of the largest mortgage lenders. Twenty years ago, a family might have expected to buy a home worth four times the annual income – now that is probably eight times the money they make, meaning that rent rather than the proportion of the population they own has almost doubled in two decades.
The number of households working hard to find stable homes has also increased significantly. More than 159,000 children in England alone are homeless and have no permanent address – a record high. The housing benefits bills for those who cannot fully pay their own way are up, up, which is a huge price for taxpayers.
In other words, this affects all of us.
Sir Keir Starmer has been yelling to build a house since the opposition era and tried the “We Are Builders” line at the party meeting in 2023, repeating since. Sources in the industry welcome Labour’s concerns and ambitions on housing with the “negative” relationship with the former government. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who will be attending our show tomorrow, has been praised for her correct conversation and listening with the industry.
“It’s great to have a government that wants to solve the market – it’s very broken.” Even a senior conservative applauded Sir Keir and Sir Keir and Sir Rayner’s focus on housing, and the return of goals built in local councils: “She is right and can bring back the mandatory goals, and we’re wrong.”
Some questions are whether the government’s approach is fundamental enough, but it is busy taking measures in hopes that the industry can achieve what the industry calls “stretch” goals to build 1.5 million new homes after its 2029 term.
Ministers are trying to change planning rules in the planning bill introduced next month, bringing back the goal of council to speed up the construction of large-scale housing developments and hope that there is a new staff member who hopes to create a new town. You’ll hear Rayner’s political message about housing often, and from the Prime Minister’s nuclear reactor and Prime Minister Rachel Reeves at Heathrow’s airport, ” The answer is not always missing.”
This intention – build rather than block – is one thing. What makes it real is completely different.
Countless ministers tell us that they are changing the rules of the planning and that no one in the industry, or indeed in the opposition, will tell you that planning is not an important part of the problem.
But look at what has actually happened recently – in the advance of the election, when labor seems to be regaining power, the number of plans approved by the plan Reaching the lowest level in a decade. The number of sites approved for development has been declining since Labor entered No. 10.
The government also imposed stamp duty for first-time buyers when pounding for buildings. Tighten the rules for private landlords Improve the quality of houses for renters. Whether you approve these changes or not, the Minister is trying to encourage builders to move in one direction, but increases the costs for buyers and builders. Another housing source said that no matter how labor is planned “in other parts of the universe, they make builders really expensive”.
PA MediaChanging plans have their limitations. If the Council cannot make up for the serious shortage of program officials handling applications, adjustments to the rules will be limited. The housing association responsible for building social housing has also been extended cash.
Maybe it’s right that new requirements can be raised to the standards of the house they offer, but that’s not cheap. If they feel they aren’t enough to register in an affordable home in a new development, builders who need to build an affordable home cannot move on.
An industry source told me, “Thousands of affordable homes have been put on hold, which means thousands of new homes have been put on hold.”
Even if everything else is fixed, are there enough building shops to lay bricks or enough plumbers to put the pipes?
An industry insider told me: “There is a big belief in the government that if you pull the planning leverage, everything will flow, but you can’t just pull one lever and expect everything to work,” another said: Fixed Thinking plan is the answer for everyone. ”
Listen to Sir Kyle, in a strange echo of Boris Johnson, he said enough opposition, which is a priority, and his administration will do everything possible to achieve it. Maybe. But remember two inevitable facts.
The first fact is that housing is a market, so its wealth or failure is completely related to what is happening in the economy. Many publics extend financially and have low interest in risk, which faces a huge challenge in first-time home buyers getting cash.
It’s also a challenge for big builders: You may not shed tears for big real estate companies, but as the source said: “Baker won’t toast unless he knows someone will buy something – the economy is so uncertain, You have to doubt whether the builder will risk buying the land and then build uncertain returns in three to four years.”
The second fact is that labor does not seem to have the appetite or determination to change the way housing sector works in any dramatic way for all topics of “change, change, change.”
They did not propose, for example, that the Council directly funded projects that brought excavators to the field. There are no suggestions, such as the lender underwriting purchased by George Osborne, no hint of the 1980s rights purchased by Margaret Thatcher, nor from the post-World War II From a Clement Attlee-like council house building plan.
In other words, one source said everything they did was a version they had tried before, while another said, “It was kind of like a market, they mostly kept it in their hands.”
EPAIf the government can make it easier for people to buy houses and improve decent houses for those who cannot buy or sell, then the government has a great opportunity to change people’s lives. And, you cannot question the ministers’ desire to make a difference during their tenure.
But it is not the same to want something to happen and achieve that. Government sources told me: “Imagine if we knew there would be kids growing up in a house where there was existence because we made a change.”
Some goals are commendable, but the ambitious scale is that some people believe that it is not in line with the will of truly bold action.
Ministers tell you that until they face the blue, they will build more homes and solve the housing crisis. But the government soon discovered that it could not stand in Whitehall and just shouted, “Let me do this.”
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