A new report has starkly outlined the failure to create an integrated housing policy or to learn the lessons from earlier attempts from major housing reviews since the 1970s.
The London School of Economics (LSE) report, “Achieving a more coherent and consistent approach to housing policy”, was commissioned by the Family Building Society.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Mark Bogard, CEO of the Family Building Society, said: “The greatest failure is not giving housing the status it deserves. The Minister for Housing should hold one of the Great Offices of State, alongside the Treasury; Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the Home Office.
“It is shocking that the revolving ministerial door has witnessed 15 housing ministers, none of them a Secretary of State, come and go since 2010, which is bonkers.”
The report also establishes that a plethora of well-meaning initiatives are too heavily concentrated on demand rather than ensuring a stable long-term supply of housing. Taken together with macroeconomic instability the result is too often higher prices rather than more investment. There are too many decision makers, housing policy is not fit for purpose, and the right number of homes in the right locations are not being built, the report states.
Bogard said: “50 odd years of stop-start housing initiatives, policies and reports have failed to deliver. We need real leadership and a coherent, integrated, long-term housing policy. We need to align the key players, including the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Department of Work & Pensions as well as the Department of Levelling Up and Housing and local authorities to ensure government-wide commitment.
“Any long-term housing policy cannot just be about new building. It must be about the quality and use of the whole housing stock, including support for landlords, and the circumstances of all households including reforming Stamp Duty which disincentivises moving. Housing policy is broken. Why don’t we actually fix it?”
Christine Whitehead, Emeritus Professor of Housing Economics at the LSE, who with Tony Crook from the University of Sheffield wrote the report, added: “Macro-economic stability must always take precedence over everything else. But it is absolutely necessary that decision makers take notice of the consequences to housing and develop policies to make the sector more robust.”
