Curious that Grant Shapps and Eric Pickles aren’t the only ministers involved in developing housing policy.
Cabinet Office Minister and David Cameron’s policy fixer, Oliver Letwin is also running a review into housing and particularly private housing delivery. Building.co.uk has the story here.
It seems like the review is very wide-ranging, if it is taking seriously issues like land value tax. Though I do wonder how far they will get, if they are not working with other trade and professional bodies or indeed the Homes and Communities Agency.
As talented as the civil servants at DCLG are, the description of the review as involving ‘a small coterie of staff’ from the department, doesn’t inspire that much confidence.
Perhaps Grant Shapps should be somewhat concerned about this review. Does it indicate that No10 doesn’t have full trust in the DCLG ministerial team? After all, Lansley’s health reforms, often tipped as a slow motion train wreck, have also been treated to the Letwin policy review treatment.
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