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What could the next government do on housing in its first 100 days?

The next government will inherit many social and economic challenges, with housing a significant part of the solution. At CIH we’re calling for a long-term housing plan, backed by targets to meet housing needs. We set out our proposals in our Homes at the Heart strategy and 10-point plan, published last autumn.  

While many of the reforms needed will require consultation and time to implement, there are some important actions the next government can take within the first 100 days of its tenure.  These would come with little to no cost, are quickly implementable, have an immediate impact, and set the tone for more ambitious reforms.  

We propose five immediate priorities, some of which are touched on in Labour’s manifesto:  

  1. Releasing public consultations on the Decent Homes Standard (DHS) and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) in social housing, laying the groundwork for sector investment and improvements in quality, decency, and energy efficiency.
    The review of the DHS and examination of options for MEES have been ongoing for several years. Social housing providers have invested significantly in improving the quality and energy efficiency of their homes, but with no guarantee that improvements will meet higher regulatory standards.  Releasing these consultations would provide the sector with certainty on the government’s intention to introduce firm, stable regulation of social housing quality, unlocking more investment, and lay the groundwork for appropriate funding arrangements to support the sector to meet the new requirements. It would also provide social housing tenants with confidence that driving up standards is a firm priority.
  2. Reviewing the current DLUHC capital spending programme to identify unproductive spending areas and redirect investment towards social rent housing.
    Analysis published in CIH’s latest UK Housing Review (UKHR) reaffirms the need for a total supply of 300,000 new homes per annum, including 60,000-70,000 social rented units per annum in the initial period. From 2030, this should rise to around 350,000 new homes per annum, of which 90,000 should be for social rent.   In the UKHR’s assessment of all forms of government support for new housing investment between 2021/22 to 2024/25, comprising £41 billion in total, slightly more than half (51%) was directed towards the private market and 49% for affordable housing. This totals around £5 billion of investment pa for the private market. Whilst comparisons cannot be made strictly on a like-for-like basis, capital support for affordable housing supply is much higher in Scotland (90%), Wales (82%) and Northern Ireland (100%). The next government should provide a much-needed boost to affordable housing supply by rebalancing DLUHC’s capital spending and allocating a more significant proportion of the programme to social rented homes. This would have little to no effect on overall government spend.  
  3. Publishing the technical consultation on the implementation of M4(2) accessibility standards for new homes, providing certainty to housing developers that they will be required to meet new standards from April 2025.  
    In September 2020, DLUHC consulted on raising accessibility standards in new homes. In July 2022, it confirmed its intention to mandate the current M4(2) (Category 2: Accessible and adaptable dwellings) requirement in Building Regulations as a minimum standard for all new homes, subject to further consultation on draft technical details.  This has significant cross-sector support in the housing, health, and built environment sectors. In March 2024, the Building Safety Regulator said the draft technical details would be published for consultation before the summer recess. Reviewing and publishing the draft details for consultation would give certainty to developers that M4(2) will be the standard they are required to build to from April 2025, and signal to disabled people that improving the accessibility of new homes is a priority.
  4. Reducing discounts under the Right to Buy scheme (RTB) and allowing councils to set the discount rate in their area, stemming the loss of social housing and providing the government with space to examine longer-term options.
    Research by Savills estimates 100,000 homes are likely to be sold through RTB by 2030, with just 43,000 replaced as high discounts leave councils without funding to replace homes on a like-for-like basis. RTB can play an important role in enabling families to get on the housing ladder, but only if sufficient progress is made towards housebuilding targets to ensure it does not result in a net loss of social homes.  The long-term future of RTB requires more detailed policy thinking and public consultation, but the next government could take immediate steps to stem the flow of social homes into the private rented and owner occupied sectors by freezing current discount levels, preventing them from rising with inflation, and enabling councils to set the discount rate in their area according to local discretion.
  5. Implementing the measures committed to in the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 and exploring long-term funding options for supported housing to provide much-needed accommodation for vulnerable groups.
    The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight Act) was passed in 2023 and provides a range of powers to drive up standards. The next government should conclude recruitment for the national expert advisory panel, launch consultations on national standards for accommodation and for local authority licensing schemes, and work with the expert panel and wider sector to explore possibilities for a long-term revenue funding stream for supported housing. Quick action on the Act will enable developers to move forward with much-needed supported housing schemes with confidence, establishing an immediate pathway to growing the quality and quantity of accommodation and support for some vulnerable groups.  

Finally, whilst it would require some upfront investment, given the growing pressures on council budgets from rising homelessness the next government should also make money available to local authorities to acquire homes for temporary accommodation. This would generate considerable savings in the long run and relieve pressure on stretched LA budgets.

Rachael Williamson, Head of policy and external affairs at Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH)

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) is the professional body for people who work or have an interest in housing. We have approximately 17,000 members across the UK and are committed to working in partnership with the next government to build a future where everyone has a decent, safe, warm, accessible, and affordable place to call home.  

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Election 2024: 8 Prospective MPs who will tackle the housing crisis

As the general election approaches, a new generation of MPs appears on the horizon to take the mantle of solving the country’s greatest crises.

Every new and returning Labour MP will bring a wealth of experience and specialisms to help in their area of interest, along with to represent their constituents more broadly. But we at Red Brick, and the broader Labour Housing Group, will be most focused on those new MPs who will be fighting on the front lines of the housing crisis.

Housing runs through the heart of the Labour movement, and it is no surprise that there are many qualified PPCs who have it in their DNA. This is by no means an exhaustive list of these, but below are some particular candidates that members of our Executive Committee are particularly excited about:

Sarah Sackman (testimonial written by Ross Houston)

Seat: Finchley and Golders Green

Previous MP: Mike Freer (stepping down in 2024)

Required swing to win: 9.7%

Former London LHG Exec member Sarah is a much-respected barrister specialising in planning and environmental law. She has acted for local authorities, NGOs such as Shelter and individuals fighting for better housing. Her proudest career achievement was winning in the High Court for the Foxhill Estate Residents Association – preventing the demolition of 500 council homes. Sarah also worked on No One Left Behind campaign in Boston, a housing campaign to keep people in their homes during the foreclosure crisis in 2010. She’s taught a class in planning and urban politics at LSE for the last 10 years.

Andrew Lewin (testimonial written by Alison Inman)

Seat: Welwyn Hatfield

Previous MP: Grant Shapps

Required swing to win: 10.4%

For a self-confessed housing geek like me Welwyn Hatfield is a fascinating battleground seat. Labour’s Andrew Lewin is taking on veteran Tory MP Grant Shapps. Shapps was the longest serving Housing Minister since Yvette Cooper and Andrew has spent the past seven years working for one of the country’s largest housing associations.

Housing needs to be at the top of the next Government’s to-do list, and we need MPs like Andrew who understand our complex housing system and how it does and doesn’t work. We need to hit the ground running on housing and Andrew is in a great position to help us do just that.

Satvir Kaur (testimonial written by Sheila Spencer)

Seat: Southampton Test  

Required swing to win: none

Previous MP: Alan Whitehead (standing down in 2024)

Satvir has lived in Southampton all her life. She grew up on free school meals, in a deprived part of the inner city. She began her working life in her family’s shop and market stalls.

As a Southampton councillor from 2011, housing portfolio holder and then as Leader from 2022-3, Satvir led on the city’s largest council home building programme and on community initiatives to tackle poverty. Now, as the candidate, building the homes needed is one of her priorities, knowing that too many young people and families are currently giving up hope of having their own home one day

Rachel Blake (testimonial written by Alex Toal)

Seat: Cities of London and Westminster

Required swing to win: 6.3%

Previous MP: Nickie Aiken (standing down in 2024)

Former LHG Vice-Chair Rachel Blake is perfectly positioned to tackle the housing crisis. With policy experience in HM Treasury and local government, securing funding and delivering programmes of investment in new and existing council homes, she is a passionate advocate for better housing, renters’ rights and leasehold reform, holding events about these issues across the constituency, which has disproportionately high numbers of households in these tenures.

Rachel is hoping to make history as Labour’s first ever MP in ‘Two Cities’, after Labour won the council in 2022 and the London Assembly West Central seat in 2024, and would be a powerful advocate for housing in the constituency.

Tracy Gilbert (testimonial written by Ross Houston)

Seat: Edinburgh North and Leith

Required swing to win: 10.9%

Previous MP: Deirdre Brock

Housing affordability is important to Tracy. She has direct experience as a former Housing Benefits Officer and has a long record as a campaigner and champion for her community. In 2023 Edinburgh’s Labour administration declared a housing emergency in a city with acute challenges with temporary accommodation, rising rents and homelessness. Edinburgh has the lowest proportion of homes for social rent in Scotland. Tracy is Regional Secretary for USDAW and has a proven track record negotiating pay rises across the public and private sectors. Ever more vital when dealing with pressures around the cost of living and housing for her members.

Jayne Kirkham (testimonial written by Sheila Spencer)

Seat: Truro and Falmouth

Required swing to win: 4%

Previous MP: Cherilyn Mackrory

Jayne Kirkham is Labour’s Group Leader at Cornwall Council, and a Falmouth town councillor. She worked as a Trade Union and Employment Rights solicitor, then volunteered for the local CAB and worked in a local school, so knows the challenges that working people face very well.

Jayne puts housing as her number one priority for Cornwall: finding truly affordable housing in Cornwall feels like such an intractable problem.  She has a record of pressuring both local and national government to see this for the housing emergency that it is in Truro & Falmouth.

Dan Tomlinson (testimonial written by Ross Houston)

Seat: Chipping Barnet

Required swing to win: 4.6%

Previous MP: Theresa Villers  

Dan grew up on free school meals and was homeless for a time as a child. As a new dad himself the lack of decent, sustainable and affordable housing is something very close to his heart. An experienced economist who started his career in HM Treasury, Dan currently works for the UK’s leading anti-poverty charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and is ideally placed to champion housing solutions.

He is passionate to see sustainable and genuinely affordable homes built, but crucially with a planning system which will promote our local economies and provide the needed infrastructure, such as GPs and schools.

David Smith (testimonial written by Sheila Spencer)

Seat: Northumberland North

Required swing to win: 16%

Previous MP: Anne-Marie Trevelyan

When David moved to the North East 16 years ago, he says it was very unusual to see anyone begging on the street. He was horrified that this became the new normal under the Tories. As a result, he became CEO of a homelessness charity working across the region, after working in international development. North Northumberland covers towns and villages from Morpeth to Berwick. David recognises that it needs real investment to properly “level-up”, including high quality social housing as well as much better transport infrastructure, high-skilled green jobs, and building bridges across divides.

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A bold housing strategy means tackling more than building

The UK’s housing crisis is reaching a critical point. Rents are soaring, whilst homeownership remains out of reach for many after years of house price increases outpacing wage growth. In the late 1990s, the average house price was 3.5 times the average income in England – as of 2023, this had more than doubled to 8.2 times, with prices exceeding 12 times incomes in many areas of London. All of this means that homelessness is skyrocketing – with Britain having by far the highest rate of homelessness in the rich world when you include those in temporary accommodation, which is the largest form of homelessness. Combined with decades of declining social housing stock, demand for social homes now far outstrips supply, and local authorities are being forced to spend record amounts on high-cost, poor-quality temporary accommodation from the private sector, driving them into severe financial difficulty. In 2022/23, £1.8bn was spent by councils on temporary accommodation, over double that spent in 2018/19.

It’s in this context that this month, Positive Money and London Renters Union, a grassroots tenants union representing over 7,000 members, brought together parliamentarians, renters unions and policy experts for a discussion in parliament, Beyond Building: Fixing the UK Housing Crisis.

The discussion reflects a growing awareness that addressing the multiple crises that our housing system not only reflects but is exacerbating – from inequity that runs along racial, class and generational lines, to the climate impact of British homes – requires a fundamental shift away from homes from being treated as assets for accumulating wealth. Positive Money’s Banking on Property report sets out why approaching the crisis as a problem of housing supply alone will likely do little to solve it. Available academic evidence (plus UK Government modelling) also suggests that meeting the house building target of the current government is unlikely to bring house prices to an affordable level. As a problem driven by a toxic combination of the weakening of financial regulation and monetary policy, and wider housing policy choices including tax incentives, The Right To Buy and the deregulation of the private rental market, a housing policy agenda fit for the situation we’re in must address these drivers head-on.

Those at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, including private renters, intuitively understand the need to confront the distribution and price of housing. Yet despite an abundance of evidence and the vocal campaigning of those most impacted by the crisis, policy discussions often remain laser-focussed on how to increase the building of new homes. And despite Rachel Reeves’ welcome announcement that ‘a house should be a home not an asset’, Labour has so far announced little in the way of policies that truly reflect this ambition. Doing so undoubtedly requires a bold and multi-faceted policy programme, and a willingness to challenge the interests of those who benefit from our extractive housing system. But with housing costs making up one of the biggest items of expenditure for any household, there is a strong case that doing so would pay off for a future government.

The discussion brought together a range of voices to discuss the solutions needed, focussing on two key policy areas that, in our view, should form important components of a long-term vision for a more affordable, safer and healthier housing system: local authority acquisitions of privately-rented housing for use as council homes; and proper regulation of the private rented sector to provide security and affordability for tenants. As Beth Stratford, economist and co-founder of the London Renters Union, highlighted, the two ideas dovetail well. Since much of the pushback against regulation of the private rented sector cites concern that it could cause landlords to sell properties, acquisition programmes offer an out for those private landlords who may indeed choose to exit the sector, whilst providing the social housing we urgently need.

‘Buy back’ schemes are gaining momentum as a way to take advantage of the recent softening of house prices to rapidly increase the stock of council homes and support the sustainability of local government finances. As social housing expert and crossbench peer Richard Best reflected upon during the discussion, such programmes are not new – in the 1960s and 70s, tens of thousands of privately rented-properties, often ‘entire streets’ of houses in poor condition, were purchased and renovated by local councils. London’s buy-back schemes are key recent examples, but remain limited in scale in comparison, and do not match the ambition of similar programmes being pursued in cities like Barcelona.

Alex Diner, Senior Researcher at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), presented an analysis of how London’s buy-back scheme would more than pay for itself through both directly reducing council payments to private housing providers, as well as indirect benefits from health and earnings improvements. NEF’s proposed reforms, including establishing a national fund to support acquisitions at scale, could replicate such savings across the country whilst providing much-needed social housing. Similar programmes could be designed to support the acquisition of privately-rented homes for community-led housing, like cooperatives and community land trusts. But as speakers discussed, central to this will be a new government setting a goal to actively shift tenures away from the private rented sector’

Whilst acquisitions could offer a rapid route to expanding social housing stock, it’s unlikely that even the most ambitious agenda could alleviate the urgent situation faced by so many renters. As members of the renter unions in attendance highlighted, in the face of record price increases, insecurity, and poor quality of privately rented housing that disproportionately impacts Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, rent controls in some form are needed.

As representatives of Living Rent, Scotland’s largest tenants’ union, explained, Scotland’s experience – where a temporary in-tenancy rent freeze has led to landlords’ hiking rents for new tenancies – is something that the rest of the UK can learn from. Policymakers should take solace from the fact that far from being put off by such experiences, major unions like Living Rent and the London Renters Union, which organise thousands at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, are instead mobilising members to call for long-term and well-designed policies to get rents under control.

Perhaps the clearest message that emerged is that many of those involved in developing and campaigning for policy solutions to the housing crisis understand that building new homes, while useful, is not a silver bullet solution. We need a suite of measures, which must include reversing financial deregulation and tax changes that incentivised property speculation, which have been major drivers of house price inflation. But reclaiming privately rented homes, and protecting those in the private rented sector, must be key pillars of a progressive housing agenda.

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“But what will Labour do differently?”

The general election is well underway. Across the country, thousands of Labour activists are speaking with voters and making the case for them to put their trust in us.

By all indicators, Britain is sick of fourteen years of Conservative failure. Only 15% of voters are satisfied with the government, and only 16% with Rishi Sunak’s record.

But we cannot take for granted the millions of voters intending to vote Labour, and need to reach out to the millions still who have not made up their minds. The need to make the case for a Labour government is greater than ever.

Voters may be sick of the Conservatives, but will still ask that crucial question: “what will Labour do differently?”

Housing is one of the sharpest dividing lines of this election. As the housing crisis intensifies it has risen up the list of voters’ priorities. It is an area where the Conservatives have most evidently failed, and where Labour has a clear plan.

Labour’s manifesto may well drop soon- this usually happens three weeks before an election. But, until then, how do we answer this question from voters?

Delivering the homes we need

Since the Second World War, the UK has failed to build 4.3 million homes compared to the average European country. Campaigns across the political spectrum recognise the need to build at least 300,000 a year to meet this backlog.

The Conservatives promised this at the last election, but repeatedly failed to deliver. They dropped a promised reform of the planning system to get Britain building, and scrapped their own housing target to appease their own backbenchers.

Meanwhile, a decade of austerity has hollowed out council planning departments, preventing them from making local plans to let communities have a say in what homes are built where. By accelerating the Right to Buy they sold off 113,000 council homes, while the number of households in temporary accommodation has soared to over 100,000.

Labour has a plan to undo these mistakes. With a sizeable majority, Labour will have the ability to reform the planning system to get Britian building, prioritising brownfield land to deliver 1.5 million homes over the next Parliament. By also reforming planning and slowing down the Right to Buy, Labour plans to deliver the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation.

This won’t just be a builders’ charter either. By recruiting 300 extra local planners, Labour will empower local communities to take back control of their local areas and have a say over what is built where. And Labour will ensure that Section 106 agreements by developers are met, so that essential schools, roads, and GP surgeries are delivered alongside the homes we need.

Key to this will be a fresh generation of New Towns, built with mandated principles behind them, of 40% affordable and social homes, community infrastructure, transport links, and beautiful design.

By delivering the homes the country needs, Labour will put in the cornerstone to tackling the housing crisis.

Ending exploitation in the private rental sector and leasehold

The housing shortage has enabled bad actors in the private rental sector to abuse their power. While rents skyrocket, tenants are forced into overcrowded, poor-quality accommodation, often with the threat of eviction if they ask for even the slightest improvements.

The Conservatives came to power with a crystal-clear commitment to strengthen renters’ rights, and even introduced legislation in 2021 to do so. But the chaos of three prime ministers and sixhousing ministers, and the opposition of a hardcore lobby of landlord MPs have obstructed progress, and so Rishi Sunak failed to get this bill passed into law.

Not only will Labour strengthen protections for renters, but they will go further to ensure that they have the stability they deserve. A Labour government will end Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, ensure that reported hazards in private rented homes are investigated within 14 days, and outlaw rental bidding wars.

Similarly, the Conservatives promised to reform the feudal practice of leasehold, to protect leaseholders from exploitative service charges and unfair practice. But, once again, this was watered down. A Labour government will pick up their mess by implementing the thorough recommendations for reform presented by the Law Commission.

Better and warmer homes

The UK has some of the oldest housing stock and least energy efficient homes in Europe. As a result, residents pay more for less, with higher energy bills, colder homes, and health risks from damp and mould, while heating our buildings also comprises 14% of our carbon emissions.  

Improving the quality of our homes will improve lives, tackle climate change and make the UK less reliant on oil-rich dictators like Vladimir Putin.

But Rishi Sunak has failed to take the necessary steps to improve home quality. Not only did he scrap the UK’s Energy Efficiency Taskforce as a political stunt, but his Great British Insulation Scheme, designed to insulate 300,000 homes by 2026, has so far only helped 7,720 households.  

Labour has a clear plan to improve home quality for the millions impacted by our poor-quality stock. A Labour government will introduce a ‘Decent Homes Standard 2’ for the private rental sector, after the first iteration by the Blair government improved lives for millions of renters. Meanwhile, a Warm Homes Plan will insulate 5 million homes by 2030, bringing them up to a minimum EPC C rating.

Reasons for hope

Fourteen years of Conservative housing failure have left the whole country footing the bill. But a Labour government with the energy and passion for change can put a stop to this. The party has a clear plan to deliver the homes we need, improve the ones we have, and protect from exploitation those at the sharpest end of the housing crisis.

“What will Labour do differently?” In housing, a hell of a lot.   

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The promise of New Towns

A new generation of New Towns – tree-lined and with character rooted in local history! Angela Rayner outlined Labour’s ambitions at a UK housing conference in Leeds yesterday. The announcement adds more detail to the headline-grabbing New Towns plan unveiled at the Labour Conference in October 2023.

Housing campaigners have been delighted to see Labour’s priority for tackling the severe shortage of homes in England, but there have been some words of caution from economists on the lessons to be learnt from previous New Towns.

Rayner set out a robust code for Labour’s proposed New Towns with six principles. The boldest is a gold standard of 40% social and affordable housing. Another is a guarantee of public transport and public services such as GP surgeries. The code aims to overcome common objections to new developments with a focus on characterful buildings, incorporating local design, and access to nature and children’s play areas.

There has been some pushback from researchers who worry about the possible locations of New Towns. According to Ant Breach, Associate Director of the Centre for Cities, all “the easy fruit has been picked”. Breach emphasised that “you have to lean into the geography of the economy in Britain.” Others have pointed to the lack of delivery on new community infrastructure in more recent iterations of New Towns. Northstowe is one such example, where over 2,000 residents lack any shops, café or GP surgery.

New Towns such as Milton Keynes have been successful because they have close connections to vibrant existing economies. They attracted new residents with the promise of well-designed new communities with good transport links to job opportunities in nearby cities.

Some of the most successful New Towns are urban extensions to existing cities, such as Edinburgh’s New Town or Barcelona’s Eixample. Less successful New Towns have been poorly located with no such links to jobs nearby or there were already lots of local housing options already. Skelmersdale and Cumbernauld are often mentioned as New Towns that struggled to thrive for these exact reasons. The key is location, location, location.

New homes in Britain are difficult to build in part due to complex and lengthy planning processes. New Towns can help with that and may even help sidestep the political logjams that currently block homes. One motivation for New Towns is that Labour could get the best electoral outcomes by choosing deep rural locations with good rail connections, to avoid controversial measures in the more electorally challenging suburbs.

There are clear lessons from previous plans that New Towns need to be in the right locations and that delivery is a challenge. The Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and, Communities has limited resources, as does Homes England. It will be important to pick New Town sites that deliver the biggest social and economic benefits. Urban extensions of existing unaffordable towns and cities such as York, Oxford and Reading would be a great way to do this. Locations in areas where homes are more affordable, or less unaffordable, such as Nottingham or Stafford, offer less opportunity for land value capture to fund infrastructure and more social housing. Labour’s new commitment on New Towns is a bold proposal to build affordable, plentiful homes. A Labour Government must be focused on delivering homes at scale to tackle Britain’s housing crisis. New Towns can offer hundreds of thousands of people the opportunity to have a home of their own. It can also unlock the economic potential of some of our most constrained cities, helping with housing, jobs and public services across the whole country. The key will be delivery at pace. I have confidence in Angela Rayner to do that.

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Can a Labour government build more homes without exacerbating climate breakdown?

By Paul Brannen, former MEP 2014-19

With 40 per cent of global climate emissions sourced from the built environment, a future Labour government will need to be alert to the danger that its welcome pledge to build 1.5 million homes could exacerbate climate breakdown. The good news is that the exact opposite is also possible: every desperately needed new home could also help address the climate crisis.

Why is the built environment such a major cause of climate breakdown? Concrete, steel, bricks and breeze blocks can only be manufactured using large amounts of energy, energy which is still predominately sourced from the burning of fossil fuels. Concrete is an acute problem because, as well as the energy needed, the manufacturing process of extracting the lime from the limestone triggers a chemical reaction resulting in the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. In fact, concrete is responsible for a staggering eight per cent of total global carbon emissions. Steel is almost as problematic but is partly redeemed by its high recycling rates. Currently, virtually everything we build has an unnecessarily large carbon footprint.

The CO2 emissions do not cease once construction is complete, as buildings in the UK typically need to be heated for more than half the year and, increasingly, cooled for the rest of the year due to warmer summers. Again, this is mainly done using energy sourced from fossil fuels.  In this case, the solution is much better insulation but, even our newbuilds use far greater energy than those in comparable countries.

[Global CO2 emissions by sector – source UN Environmental Global Status Report 2017]

[Global CO2 emissions by sector – source UN Environmental Global Status Report 2017]

Is there then a material out there that we could use as a substitute for concrete, steel, brick and block? Yes: Timber! Scotland, Canada, the USA and the Nordic countries build 80 per cent of their family homes with timber frames. But England builds less than 20 per cent. Does it matter? Yes. Timber’s carbon footprint is considerably lower than most construction materials, plus it also stores carbon – a virtue that will be of increasing importance in achieving net zero.

Recent developments with a material known as engineered timber (or mass timber in North America) mean that it is now possible to build at height and at scale with timber in urban settings. Labour-led Hackney Council, has the largest concentration of engineered timber buildings in the world – including flats, offices, a cinema and a church.

[Murray Grove, Hackney, London - the world’s first modern engineered timber tower at nine storeys, built in 2009, Waugh Thistleton Architects]

[Murray Grove, Hackney, London – the world’s first modern engineered timber tower at nine storeys, built in 2009, Waugh Thistleton Architects]

Professor Michael Ramage of the University of Cambridge calculated that erecting a 300-square-metre, four-storey student residence in wood generated only 126 tonnes of CO2 emissions. If it had been made with concrete the tally would have risen to 310 tonnes. If steel had been used emissions would have topped 498 tonnes. Indeed, the building can be viewed as “carbon negative” as there is the equivalent of 540 tonnes of CO2 stored in the wood, resulting in a long-term subtraction of CO2 from the atmosphere.

A switch to building more with wood rightly raises questions around the supply of sustainable timber, forests, biodiversity, land availability, fire risk and timber builds. I have set out to answer these questions  in detail in my forthcoming book Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown. Suffice to say the construction industry can provide answers to these questions.  

Hopefully a Labour government will be up for the switch to timber for the sake of the climate. If so, what should they do to encourage a greater use of timber in construction? Six specific steps should be promoted by an incoming Labour government:

1. Implement the Environmental Audit Committee’s proposal to legislate for mandatory whole-life carbon assessment of all new buildings, including the amount of stored carbon, as part of the planning permission process.

2. Set maximum standards for the carbon footprints of new builds and their energy use, which can then be tightened over time as we aim for net zero in 2050.

3. Incentivise the use of nature-based materials such as timber in construction, including insulation, in part by recognising that the storage of carbon in buildings is a climate benefit.

4. Facilitate education about the use of nature-based materials across the whole of the construction-value chain.

5. Increase the home-grown sustainable wood supply by increasing commercial forest planting.

6. Implement the current government’s 2023 Timber in Construction Roadmap which includes working with industry and academia to identify opportunities and barriers to the use of timber in retrofit and promote best practice and innovation by 2027.

Labour is right to state that there is no magic money tree. There is, however – when it comes to tackling climate breakdown – a magic timber tree. A Labour government can deliver the homes the country desperately needs, and at the same time turn the built environment into a carbon sink rather than a carbon emitter. A win-win for Labour, the country and the climate.

[There are 1,000 tonnes of carbon safely stored in the timber used to construct the new Founder’s Building at the University of Washington. This climate benefit was recognised, monetised and sold for $150,000].

[There are 1,000 tonnes of carbon safely stored in the timber used to construct the new Founder’s Building at the University of Washington. This climate benefit was recognised, monetised and sold for $150,000].

…………………………………………………………………………

Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown will be published in June 2024 and can be pre-ordered https://www.waterstones.com/book/timber/paul-brannen/9781788217354

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Delivering 1.5m homes:  Why we need a diverse and competitive housebuilding industry

The UK has a huge backlog of housing need, with the effects of this rippling across our society.  Studies in 2018-19 suggested that there where over 4.75m households in need of suitable housing, with recent updates outlining the need for an additional 60-70,000 social rented homes per year, rising to 80-90,000 by 2030.  Beyond this, many argue that we should be adding 300,000 homes in total to our housing stock each year. This is something Labour are committed to, in the delivery of 1.5m additional homes over the next parliament.

But we need to wake-up to the scale of this change. Over the last five years we have added under 16,000 social rented homes a year across England, Scotland and Wales. Net additional homes in England have been below 250,000 for well over 20 years and new housing completions across the UK have not exceeded 300,000 per year for over four decades[1].

In sum, we are miles off Labour’s supply targets, and to get there would take a radical long-term approach far beyond the proposals presented so far.  Assuming the proposals around planning reform, land compensation and compulsory purchase, and the creation of new towns, all deliver significantly more land for development within five years – something we are justified in being sceptical about – one fundamental issue would remain. Who will produce these homes?

At present, over 40 per cent of new homes are built by just eight housebuilding firms, as the market share of SME developers has shrunk over several decades.  In contrast to Germany, where over 50 per cent of homes are self-build, or directly commissioned by future residents, the equivalent supply here in the UK is just 7 per cent.

This matters for a number of reasons. Firstly, to create 300,000 new homes a year we will need to ramp-up of delivery by lots of different producers, in order to meet the varied housing needs that exist.  Secondly, as explained in the recent Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report on housebuilding, diversity of supply affects the speed at which homes are built-out, and therefore how fast you can add new supply. The greater the diversity of housing types, the quicker the market ‘absorbs’ them. Thirdly, as stated again by the CMA, the particular brand of speculative housebuilding we have in the UK is problematic, and not only in terms of the level of supply we get, but also in terms of its effect on prices and the extraction of value.  Value extraction through dividends and other shareholder returns represents lost investment, or more precisely, lost homes.  There are other factors that affect new supply, with the CMA at pains to stress the dysfunctions in our planning system, but far too often the nature of speculation in our housing system, and associated capital flows, are overlooked.

Over the past few decades, large UK housebuilders have changed markedly, particularly in terms of who owns them and how they are governed. The largest shareholdings in our big housebuilders are now largely held by global asset managers who, when studied, seem to extract more capital from these firms than they impart into the wider housing supply system. When we case studied one of the biggest shareholders in our PLC housebuilders we saw investments of £45m to support new housing production in a given year, but this was eclipsed by capital returns of £158m.

In our recent report, The Invisible Hand That Keeps On Taking, we showed that in 2005 the eight largest housebuilders paid out 16 per cent of pre-tax profits in dividends. This equated to just over £5,000 per home built. By 2022 their dividends were 47 per cent of profits, representing £22,000 per home. Dividends increased by 230 per cent in real terms, compared to new housing completions which rose just 23 per cent over the same time frame.  Dividends have been made possible by a long running period of ‘super-normal’ profitmaking, evidenced by the CMA’s analysis and our own research.  Whilst the claim is these super-normal profits are part of the ‘cyclical’ nature of housebuilding, and therefore just a feature of a boom period, we see that for twelve out of the last twenty years housebuilders have made super normal returns.  Only five of these years saw returns on capital below a ‘normal’ range.  We would argue that is a pretty favourable cycle, if indeed it is one. When we analyse changes in the costs per home built we see that this profitability has made possible, in part, by driving down land costs.

And herein lies the problem for Labour. Building 1.5m homes offers little time for slow market restructuring, to boost competition and production by different actors. And yet, reliance on the current market suggests completions will not rise at the rate required, largely because that would have a deflationary effect on the price of those homes, something which cannot be tolerated if your modus operandi is increasing margins rather than increasing volumes. 

So, what can be done?  Firstly, Labour should reorientate itself to targets on affordable homes, focusing its efforts on policy responses which boost affordable supply. If we cannot borrow more to increase funding for more affordable homes (as per the fiscal rules) then this should be achieved through targeted taxation or by capturing value elsewhere to reinvest.  Here it is instructive to note that between 2016-21, the UK government allocated £9bn in affordable housing grants in England, to create tens of thousands of new affordable homes. Over same period, the dividends of the eight biggest housebuilders equated to £11bn. And so just the dividend payments of a few companies exceeded government expenditure on affordable housing grants, and this does not factor in the other means of returning capital to shareholders that such companies engage in.

If there is surplus in this system, then it needs to be directed toward increased supply, or captured for the public purse to then be redirected.  Forms of taxation, and conditioning public funding and support for housebuilders, are just two means to do this.  If you are benefiting from public subsidy – for instance where a housebuilder is building homes funded with affordable housing grants – then you should adhere to certain requirements on the reinvestment of surpluses. If we can levy charges on housebuilders to remediate fire-safety issues, then perhaps we should be levying charges to help address critical housing need.

Beyond private housebuilding, there is much that can be done in policy terms to incentivise development by small and medium builders, self-builders, and community-led housing groups.  This could include incentives in the planning system, making better use of exception site policies, and creating presumptions in favour of these types of development.  Labour has had very little to say on this to-date, and it’s time to dedicate some proper policy attention to this issue, which can help us diversify the production system.

The hope is that in the rush to increase housing supply, we do not deepen the dysfunctions within our housebuilding system further, and instead we play the long game to radically shift who builds, and therefore who benefits.


[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building

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What’s holding back estate regeneration? Personal reflections and hopes for joined-up policy

I don’t know exactly when it started to set in, this pessimism about housing I’ve had lately.

If I had to put a date on it I’d say 2021, probably the summer, when I was working as a Housing Operations Manager, responsible for thousands of residents’ homes across different estates and schemes across London. I knew our plans for the renovation of 1940s walk-up blocks were held back again by failure demand, due to the mounting backlog of routine and emergency repairs to our homes and estates which stripped away our allocated maintenance routine and planned budgets. Inflation, to my eye mysteriously low until now at a headline level, could also go up at any time.

The Office for National Statistics Housing Construction output prices indices shows that between June 2018 and June 2020 the cost of housing repairs and maintenance rose from 104.8% of 2015 prices to 106.9%. Between June 2020 and June 2021,  it rose to 109.3%. Thereafter, the index spiked sharply, peaking at 120%) where it has stayed since. Our economic circumstances in housing and homelessness are now vastly different, just like those early Covid-predictions.

From my viewpoint, financial instability, deprivation and lack of clear national direction were already biting local communities, holding back housing reinvestment and regeneration and stressing our social housing workforce.

The national headlines about an exponential rise infood bank and emergency food relief usage were played out in the real world in front of our eyes as residents set up or expanded food banks and emergency food delivery schemes, which we supported financially and with our own system of well-being calls and free food deliveries for those who needed help.

While this was ongoing,  the pressure on our finances began to tighten with soaring maintenance and repair costs, cross-subsidy demands for new building, loan repayments, while our income was restricted by rent freezes, capped increases and constricting credit systems that usually serviced a 100,000 unit housing association smoothly but were starting to tighten as interest rates began to rise.

This meant residents and some frontline housing workers – many living in social housing themselves – were not only living through a pandemic but also an outbreak of delayed and broken promises of home and estate improvements.

Across the country, we knew from forums and Inside Housing, some of the most alert housing associations were scrambling to adapt to a new post-pandemic future – they didn’t expect much yet from the government given how little they were used to being guided on housing management since de-regulation after 2011 and 2015!


When Covid started looking serious in early 2020, we’d been so relieved both for our residents, and as a team,  that the first phase of the renovation plans were completed, not knowing how long or severe the disruption to housing services would be. Never had the phrase “fix the roof while the sun is shining” had so much relevance when storm clouds were gathering around again. 


This was work for me, but it was personal as well. As we discussed in the neighbourhood office every day, long-term plans for individual homes and whole neighbourhoods underpinned thousands of people’s lives. People who I quickly learned from doorstep conversations, in meetings and by email frankly didn’t care much about what their social landlord thought. As long as they could get on in life with their lives, education, work, personal challenges, life plans – they were happy to leave their social landlord to competently operate in the local economy and manage their home and neighbourhood in partnership with the council, social services, police, faith and charity groups.

Trust was fragile, and there’d been very little of it in the area when in autumn 2018 I was first set a very stretching target of implementing plans rapidly developed with residents to rebuilding trust with the residents’ associations and residents of several estates, all told it would amount to around 3,000 homes.

I was determined to rebuild that trust with my team and colleagues, by driving rapid improvements to estate reinvestment and regeneration locally, improving routine maintenance and delivering neighbourhood communication for the age of social media, enabling people to live in their homes without the need to chase their landlord or complain.

Trust needed constant work with a section of residents, many with lived experience of homelessness, with bad experience with private landlords or insecure housing in the past, as we understood from speaking with them.

From the many personal conversations I had with residents on the doorstep and in meetings, emails, Twitter and newsletter feedback received to our dedicated inboxes between 2017 and 2022, I also knew that some also felt that delay and disappointment from their social landlord meant they were reliving their own journeys of the insecure private housing, being asked to leave or being evicted and then approaching hard-pressed local authority housing departments, only to be advised of long queues to be offered the chance to bid on precious social housing flats. 


As a trainee, in constant dialogue with the residents’ associations and local Labour councillors, I’d drawn estate reinvestment plans for each of the big estates with an assembled taskforce of senior colleagues. 


These had focused on the basics, first cleaning and antisocial behaviour, then security and safety for the day-to-day challenges people faced: including stronger communal doors, new lifts, better lighting, roof repairs, water pumps. These plans were formed only in late 2018 in answer to and with residents’ associations and the local councillors, and were delivered just in time for the end of 2019/20. The next phase would focus on warmth, decency and efficiency: new heating and energy systems including heat pumps, more efficient boilers, solar panels (several residents’ associations had declared climate emergencies and were discussing community energy schemes), and communal cleaning. 

Now I felt sick speaking to my colleagues in the Repairs, Reinvestment, Neighbourhoods Department, as we looked at the plans for 2021/22 and realised how difficult it would be to deliver them. Inflation, already bad after 2016, was going south on ‘specialist’ parts for lifts, door entry systems and for window frames, certain heating system parts. Wages were increasing too. The cost of some maintenance projects had doubled, due to contractors being unwilling or unable to deliver work – they had plenty of quotes themselves. Even with an in-house contractor the same issues with materials and wages arose rapidly, and even our in-house team and trusted suppliers were unable to keep up by summer 2021.

The quotes we’d shared for full transparency with the residents’ associations would now be just promises we’d made standing up in front of a room of residents, that we’d written down and sent to our local councillors. 

Should I have felt so ashamed and angry about the prospect of my organisation, which I was proud to be the local face of for many residents, being unable to deliver everything we’d promised? 

Well, reflecting on it, the picture was more complicated. After all, successive Conservative Governments had caused a great degree of this instability, successive rent freezes and rent caps and with price shocks, material shortages, distortions in the skills and labour market, meaning that Maintenance and Planned Reinvestment and Regeneration budgets, often possible to squish together in the process of cutting them to meet straitened income was increasingly stretched or disappeared to build new homes, service debts or deal with other more pressing issues, especially fire safety checks and works.

Looking back, I can see from a policy perspective what I knew from a personal conversation with a resident talking to their housing teamthat each disappointment of a delayed repair, each broken promise to fix up their estates communal parts and gardens could seem to compound their history of bad experiences in their homes and with local public services.

But it felt like a betrayal, and we would do all we could to put it right. In the end we delivered almost everything in those neighbourhoods, a little late, to everyone’s relief by the Summer of 2022. But only after some very difficult financial decisions, including rearranging funding allocated to other high need, high priority neighbourhoods, and some brave communication with residents and their associations.

We kicked so many things down the road that residents told us would be needed which we could confirm from our stock data, and which I know will still be needed now.  Not least the local employment scheme, the solar panels, the heat pumps and the fundamental renovation of the fabric of estates and, where the residents and data pointed us, regeneration, things that my predecessors and colleagues had felt forced to push into the far future due to funding pressures and constantly changing political priorities. This showed the Conservative illiteracy of the basics of how social housing ‘worked’ on the ground.

We were far from perfect as a social housing provider, and we welcomed the new Social Housing Regulatory Regime that the Conservatives finally realised was needed, after scrapping consumer standards as a neo-liberal, austerity experiment, and yet we did try to keep up with everything and deliver new homes to boot.

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How we talk about homes matters

Knowing how to communicate effectively and having the right framing strategies at our fingertips can help us win support for new affordable and decent homes. In this article, Natalie Tate, Project Lead for Talking about Housing at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, presents the toolkit recommendations developed by FrameWorks UK with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Nationwide Foundation. Using these recommendations to help us talk about our homes will build support for solutions among the public and with stakeholder audiences, such as local branches and planning committees.

 The way campaigners and communicators talk about homes matters. We need to build support from the public for the changes that are necessary in our housing system. 

A proven framing strategy is available to anyone who wants to make the most of their voice when they’re talking to the public. It can help you tell a story that shifts thinking towards seeing homes as the foundation of a decent life. The recommendations are based on evidence – tested and verified through rigorous research and analysis by FrameWorks UK. This included interviews, survey experiments with a nationally representative sample, and peer-discourse sessions (a type of focus group). In total, over 7,000 people from across the UK were included in this research. You can learn more about the research and methods here.

People in the UK recognise the housing crisis. Even if they’re not experiencing the lack of decent affordable homes themselves, many people know someone who is negatively impacted, and it’s an issue that’s widely reported in the media.

So, what’s getting in the way of action? Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Nationwide Foundation teamed up with FrameWorks UK to understand how people in the UK think about homes – what mindsets are acting as obstacles to progress, and how we can prime more helpful ways of thinking by making choices about how we frame our communications.

We’ve been working together to reveal and share the best ways to frame our communications about homes, in ways that diminish fatalism, build understanding and activate a ‘can-do’ attitude.

How people think about homes

To persuade people that everyone can and should have a decent, affordable home, we must shift the dominant narrative away from property and wealth. Instead we need to move people to thinking immediately and primarily about homes as benefitting our mental and physical health, providing the foundation that we all need to thrive in our lives.

One of the big challenges we face as communicators is that although people see there’s unequal access to homes and that poor quality exists, they don’t know why these problems have come about and therefore they can’t picture how, or even if, they could be fixed. It’s our job is to build efficacy by explaining solutions, as well as helping people understand how we got here and who needs to take responsibility.

By using the right framing, we can help people to believe that change is possible and that it is worth calling for, moving them away from thinking that the problem is simply too big, or the system is too complicated to redesign.

Our recommendations to shift mindsets

Our top tips and examples for writing and talking about homes are:

  • Talk about homes as a source of health and wellbeing to build understanding of why access to decent and affordable homes matters.
    e.g. ‘Our homes are fundamental to our health and wellbeing. If our homes are poorly maintained, with problems like damp and mould, it’s putting our physical health at risk, as well as weighing us down with stress and worry.’
  • Describe homes as the ‘foundation’ for people’s lives, as an effective way to build understanding that decent quality homes are essential for us all.
    e.g.:New social rent homes will provide a firm foundation for families living in Swansea.’
  • Invoke people’s sense of moral responsibility to build collective concern and make the case for making decent and affordable housing available to everyone.
    e.g.:‘As a caring and responsible society, we need to do the right thing and make sure that everyone has a decent home they can afford.’

Using these evidence-led framing principles to communicate about decent and affordable homes will help us to all have more impactful, productive conversations, whether that’s when we’re talking to a public audience in our work or to our friends and family.

Find out more

The Nationwide Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and FrameWorks UK want to enable anyone with a passion for improving our housing system to play their part in changing the narrative and building deeper public support for systemic solutions. We’ve created a suite of helpful and easy to use resources that can support anyone who wants to talk about homes in a way that’s proven to work.

The Talking about Housing project is co-funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Nationwide Foundation, in partnership with FrameWorks UK. Natalie Tate is the strategic project lead, supporting voices advocating for the availability of more decent and affordable homes to apply the framing recommendations in their work.

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Labour’s London Assembly achievements and what winning a majority could mean

Housing is one of the biggest challenges facing Londoners. Keeping housing affordable, especially in the face of the Government’s cost of living crisis, has been one of the biggest priorities of Labour at the London Assembly.

Red Brick readers will know better than anyone the outcomes that come from the perfect storm of low supply, high demand, few protections of renters, recent hikes in interest rates and a decade of Government policy that has been dedicated more to keeping developers and landlords happy rather than providing housing.

London Assembly Labour’s work is helping protect our city from the damage the Government has done to the rest of the country.

While the Mayor has been delivering London’s Affordable Housing Programme, along with other crucial measures like the Council Homes Acquisition Programme, funding for domestic abuse shelters and emergency homelessness support, Labour Assembly Members’ campaigns have focused on what the Government in Westminster needs to do to support Londoners.

Particularly, we’ve seen wins on our campaign to raise Local Housing Allowance (LHA). Until last year, LHA rates had been frozen since April 2020 at 2019 levels – meaning that they would cover the cheapest third of homes in a local area as it was calculated based on the 2018/19 rental market. The huge jumps in rent since then were ignored by the Government, meaning that those claiming Local Housing Allowance were sometimes priced out of up to 98% of homes in an area – or had to cross-subsidise from the other meagre benefits they were entitled to.

Along with my London Assembly Labour colleagues, I campaigned for this to be raised – seeing the rate returned to a third of the market price. By putting pressure on the Secretary of State, along with raising the profile of those with lived experience of Local Housing Allowance, we were able to make sure that the Government weren’t able to ignore the issue.

The Government didn’t build in annual revaluations of LHA, so we know that this will need re-raising in coming years, but, hopefully, for now, this change will provide some much-needed respite for some of our city’s most vulnerable.

We’re the largest party on the Assembly, supporting the Labour Mayor, Sadiq Khan, but we don’t have a majority.

On 2nd May, our hope is to win more seats on the Assembly to build support for some of the most urgent housing issues facing our city.

Firstly, we must tackle the crisis in temporary accommodation. We know that councils spend £90 million every month on temporary accommodation – a 40% increase from the year before. Although there are some good temporary accommodation providers, we know many Londoners are forced into insanitary, overcrowded, and hazardous living conditions.

We know that everyone in temporary accommodation would rather not be there. They often end up in this crisis by being asked to leave informal situations – “sofa surfing” with friends or family – where they can no longer be accommodated, or private tenancies coming to an end (increasingly through Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions). Sadly, 64% of those in temporary accommodation are families with children. For many of those, the problems with the private rented sector and an under-supply of council housing means they are in temporary accommodation for months if not years.

This is the outcome of several years of failure: council underfunding, decades of right to buy meaning that the council houses were privatised without being replaced, low overall housing stock meaning that the cost of temporary accommodation is going up, and few rights for renters meaning that those in precarious situations are much more vulnerable than they need to have been. Our capital is seeing some of the worst temporary accommodation pressures, so London Assembly Labour won’t let the Government continue to ignore this problem.

Secondly, Sadiq Khan and London’s Government are focusing on council housing and affordable rent in the next stage of the Affordable Housing Programme – with the first stage seeing more homes for purchase built. Readers may have seen his pledge to build 40,000 council homes by 2030. Seeing how urgent the situation has become, this will also be coupled with schemes like the Council Homes Acquisition Programme that will subsidise councils to buy homes in their areas for their housing stock. We’ll make sure that the Tories in City Hall don’t cause problems for this programme, which we know will change lives.

Finally, we know that as a result of the crisis in supply chains stemming from the 2022 mini budget, labour costs and materials prices have slowed down construction across the country. In London, we risk housebuilding grinding to a halt it the Government doesn’t step up the funding for the Affordable Housing Programme. They are the ones who got us into this mess – we cannot have a generation of Londoners missing out on affordable housing as a result. Labour in City Hall make sure that the Government doesn’t oversee these problems getting worse and instead properly funds housing in London.

London’s housing crisis has been decades in the making, and it will take ambition from local, regional and national governments to address it. London Assembly Labour is just one piece of this puzzle, but we’re an impactful one – and we’ll make sure that our housing crisis doesn’t get worse for the next generation of Londoners.