The road that has taken Britain into a housing crisis is paved with broken promises. Governments have pledged action, set targets and talked about new towns, building on brownfield sites, local partnerships, devolution and similar well-intentioned policies. Yet the deficit in available homes – the number that should have been constructed in recent decades for present supply to match demand – is routinely estimated at more than 4m.
Even if the Conservatives had stuck to their manifesto goal of 300,000 new homes a year, the mission would not be accomplished before 2070. But Rishi Sunak, in an act of typical political cowardice, scrapped the target in deference to backbench Tory MPs, who put the interests of homeowning constituents over the hopes of prospective future constituents who might need somewhere to live.
Decades of failure to get building offer a reason to cheer Sir Keir Starmer’s determination to do things differently, but also a reason to withhold full confidence that he will manage it. One promising sign is Sir Keir’s forthright approach to planning reform and the need, in his words, to “bulldoze” some existing regulations.
Also refreshing is his readiness to grapple with the taboo of the green belt, which appears in many voters’ minds as an idyllic rural ribbon around cities but covers, in reality, a more complex array of sites. It is right to query the sanctity of those restrictions, although limiting urban sprawl is a legitimate concern.
Likewise, the Labour leader deserves credit for his candour in confronting nimbyism. Asked whether his housebuilding agenda would sometimes involve overriding local concerns, he said yes. It was a brave answer and, with important caveats (some of which Sir Keir went on to provide), the correct one.
Labour would address local reservations through reformed section 106 agreements – the legal obligations attached to new developments to ensure that requirements for increased infrastructure and affordable housing are part of the overall plan. It is a dirigiste approach, but not an exclusively statist one, since the main mechanism to get things built is incentives to the private sector.
That might be where the plan falls short, given the acute need for new social housing. Labour talks encouragingly about “unlocking” existing grants and providing stability to empower councils to invest. Those measures look insufficient to mobilise the capital required to restore Britain’s depleted stock of council houses. A focus on that task would help win over sceptics in Labour’s own ranks. Fear of looking profligate with public money puts a fiscal cap on the boldness of the opposition’s ambition. Labour is committed to restoring targets abandoned by Mr Sunak, but not surpassing them. Sir Keir might, with a further leap of ambition, have woven a green thread through his housebuilding plans by ensuring that new properties are heated with renewables.
Given the scale of the housebuilding task and the precedents of failure, it is reasonable to expect some disappointment in delivery. But it would be churlish not to recognise that Sir Keir has shown refreshing courage in his approach. The bar can always be set higher, but the trajectory is the right one.
