Tag: Election

One year ago, we asked the question ‘but what will Labour do differently?’ on housing ahead of the 2024 general election. Ahead of the polls, Labour was making substantial promises around its housing plans. 1.5 million homes, a generational boost in social housing, as well as fixing fundamentally flawed tenures in the private rented sector and leasehold among other promises gave hope to a sector which had been so neglected under the Conservatives.

While Labour’s first year in Government has been challenging, with difficulties at home and greater uncertainty abroad, few would have expected that it would get so much done in its first year on housing.

At the first anniversary of the election, now marks the perfect opportunity to review all that Labour has achieved in housing since entering Government, as well as looking ahead to what the next year could hold.

The road to 1.5 million homes

The Government’s flagship policy on housing was its pledge to build 1.5 million homes in this Parliament. And, while figures in industry, and even the Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook, have admitted that this is likely a stretch target, the progress which the Government has made will set the UK on a permanent path to delivering more homes.

Shortly after the election, the Government set out addressing issues with individual sites, reversing ministerial vetos on individual sites such as around Liverpool Docks (1), and establishing a New Homes Accelerator to take direct action on individual sites (2). This has also been partnered with a new subsidiary of Homes England, the National Housing Bank, with £16 billion of capital leveraging an additional £53 billion of private investment to build half a million homes (3).

Crucial to this has been making the planning system more favourable to delivering more homes at greater speed. This has involved updating the NPPF to restore housing targets (4), to reallocate low-quality ‘grey belt’ land for new homes (5), and to mandate that local authorities have a 5-year land supply and a local plan (6), the Government has undergone a number of ambitious steps in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. This has included modernising planning committees to empower councillors to deliver better-quality projects (7), delegating more decisions to officers to allow for more rules-based planning decisions (8), and streamlining planning for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), so that homes are not left without critical infrastructure (9). This work is supported by the recruitment of an additional 300 planning officers to improve capacity in local authorities (10).

Nor are the Government’s changes purely a charter for large developers, and they have included mandating faster build-out rates to prevent developers from a ‘slow-build’ approach to prioritise profit over homes (11). More support has also been provided for SME builders through establishing a new ‘medium site’ category with reduced planning rules (12), setting aside more Homes England land for smaller builders (13) and establishing a Small Sites Aggregator to unlock small sites which otherwise would not be developed (14).

However, reaching 1.5 million homes cannot be reached through planning alone, and the Government has also been active in ensuring that there is a sustainable workforce to produce the homes that we need. This has included setting up Skills England, a national body for addressing the skills shortage (15), setting aside an additional £600 million for construction sector skills (16), and establishing a Construction Skills Mission Board with an aim of recruiting an additional 100,000 new construction workers per year (17).

Key to the Government’s long-term plans are also New Towns, and while there were fears before the election that these would be unfeasible, not only did has the Government set up a New Towns Taskforce (18), but they identified 100 sites for these, with work due to start on at least 12 before the next election (19).

(See more on what the Government is doing to address the skills shortage from Lauren Edwards MP)

(See more on the Government’s plans for New Towns from Shaun Davies MP)

A generational boost to social and affordable housing

While boosting housing supply is critical, it is social and affordable homes which are most crucially needed for those with greatest housing need. While the last Government allowed 120,000 homes to be sold through the Right to Buy, Labour has already curtailed this, not only reducing discounts severely (20), and announcing that newbuild social homes will be exempt from the Right to Buy for 35 years and that social tenants will have had to have lived in their home for 10 years before being eligible (21).

Not only has the Government stopped the outflow of social homes, but they have meaningfully set the groundwork to increasing the delivery of more social homes, through instructing Homes England to direct funding primarily to social homes (22), and reforming Compulsory Purchase Orders in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to allow local authorities to buy land at existing use price rather than inflated ‘hope value’ for social housing (23). Finally, increasing the funding for social housing featured prominently at all of the Government’s major fiscal moments, with £500madded to the Affordable Homes Programmein the Autumn Budget (24), £2 billionat the Spring Statement (25), before an increase of 50% from the Conservatives’ Affordable Homes Programme to spend £39 billion on affordable homes in the recent Spending Review (26). This is combined projected to increase social housebuilding sixfold, building 300,000 new social and affordable homes over the next decade, 60% of which will be at social rent.

Finally, housing associations and local authorities have been supported to have greater financial stability, not only by being included in Government funding for cladding remediation (27), but providing greater certainty of social rent, with a ten-year rent settlement to bring social rents back to 2015 levels in real terms, and plans for social rent convergence so that artificially reduced rents are brought up to standard (28).

Improving the quality of existing stock

While delivering new homes is crucial, critical issues with our existing housing stock persist, particularly in larger blocks and in social housing. This is somewhere where the Government has taken direct action, implementing Awaab’s Law into social housing later this year (29), and setting out plans for a new Decent Homes Standard for social and private rented homes (30), alongside a first-ever Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard in social rented homes (31).

The Government has also established a plan to act on all 58 recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry (32), including introducing a single construction sector regulator. This has been alongside setting out a Remediation Acceleration Plan to fast-track the vital work to address building safety defects on high rise buildings (33).

The Government has also put their money where their mouth is on housing quality, setting aside £13.2bn for a Warm Homes Plan to bring 300,000 homes up to EPC C level (34).

Read more about the Government’s plans for building safety from Darren Paffey MP)

Fixing flawed tenures

The 4.7 million private renters and 5.3 million leaseholders in England and Wales know well that the arcane rules governing their own homes are in stark need of reform. And the Government has recognised this, launching a bold programme to fix these tenures.

In the private rented sector, the Government is on the verge of passing the Renters’ Rights Bill. Not only will this outlaw ‘no-fault’ Section 21 evictions (35), it will outlaw rental bidding wars (36), introduce a mandatory private rental sector database (37).

The Bill contains a myriad of other improvements, from the right to request a pet (38), to capping rent advances at one month (39), as well as establishing rent tribunals for tenants to charge unreasonable increases (40), but a list of 50 achievements could likely include reforms from the Renters’ Rights Bill.

Meanwhile, the Government has set out plans to implement their predecessor’s rushed Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (41), as well as fast-tracking reforms to the Right to Manage to ensure that leaseholders can hire and fire their managing agents with greater ease (42). The Government has also published a Commonhold White Paper (43), with plans to publish a full Leasehold and Commonhold Bill later this year (44), with a range of commitments already made, including mandatory qualifications for managing agents (45).

Addressing homelessness head-on

The most immediate symptom of the housing crisis is that of homelessness and rough sleeping, with the number of families in temporary accommodation reaching 126,400under the Conservatives.

The Government has acted here head-on, not only setting a Cross-Government Taskforce on Homelessness chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister (46), but putting their money where their mouth is, with a £1 billion boost to funding at the Autumn Budget (47). Attempts are also being made to address the use of bed and breakfasts as temporary accommodation with Emergency Accommodation Reduction Pilots in the 20 local authorities with the highest B&B usage (48).

While the recommendations of this taskforce are still to be seen, a number of crucial steps have already been taken. These have included exempting care leavers and survivors of domestic abuse from punitive ‘local connection tests’ for local authority housing support to ensure that they can receive critical help to prevent homelessness (49), and establishing a commitment to repealing the cruel and outdated Vagrancy Act in the Spring of 2026 to finally decriminalise rough sleeping (50).

Check out more on tackling temporary accommodation from Naushabah Khan MP)

Looking ahead: what do we need in Year 2?

Despite this progress, the Government cannot rest on their laurels, particularly with the number of new starts on site decreasing, the numbers of households in temporary accommodation on the rise, and rents continuing to increase in the PRS.

A lot of the achievements on this list, while laudable, consist of plans, targets and goal-setting. While this is undoubtedly needed in the first year of a new Government, tracking their progress and ensuring their implementation is key.

When it comes to new rights in leasehold and the private rental sector, resourcing needs to be provided to local authorities, regulators, and the First Tier Tribunal to take the increased caseload, and any gaps and loopholes need to be carefully monitored.

Moreover, blocks to delivering new homes, particularly social and affordable homes, need to be reviewed and analysed in-depth. Concerns continue to be raised with the Building Safety Regulator, as well as with viability rules and the difficulty of delivering social homes on brownfield sites. Reforms to these to enable faster delivery of homes from registered providers may well be needed to meet the Government’s housing ambitions.

Finally, while the Government has undoubtedly done a great deal of work in these areas across this year on fixing the housing crisis, more needs to be done to make the political case that these changes will actually improve voters’ lives. Even if all of Labour’s housing goals are met, showing that a slower increase in rents or prices, or slightly faster movement in social housing waiting lists, is down to the Government of the day is difficult at the best of times, and even more challenging in a competitive multi-party system. The Government needs to identify a compelling housing story to tell which links together all 50 of these accomplishments, and really sells it to voters, not just for its own sake, but to achieve a long-term political consensus for sustained housing action.

One year in, and the Labour Government is moving with remarkable speed and ambition to fix the housing crisis, proving that, when it comes to housing, change is being delivered. What this change amounts to could well be decisive both politically and substantively for Labour’s legacy.

With a few exceptions, the period of 22 May to 4 July 2024 was possibly the most predictable election in recent history. After six weeks of campaigning, debates and gaffes, nothing really changed. There was no breakout moment, no shifting of the debate, and no risk that the result would be anything other than a Labour landslide.

For housing campaigners, the lack of debate around the housing crisis will stand out as a missed opportunity. Before the election, housing advocates excitedly pointed to the increased salience of housing in polling, and its prominence in Labour’s 5 missions. But it hardly featured in the air war, the debates, or major policy announcements.

We can now look with hope to a Labour government poised to boost housing supply, improve quality of existing stock and reform problematic tenures like leasehold and private rent. But we should also ask: why was housing so absent from the election campaign; does this matter; and how can campaigners ensure that it is at the heart of the political discussion?

Multi-party consensus

Many pundits (including this one) pointed to housing as a dividing line at this election. The Conservatives had poignant housing failures around the Renters’ Reform Bill’s collapse and housing targets. Meanwhile, housing was at the centre of Labour’s policy offer, with the pledge to build 1.5 million homes, reform the private rental sector, and improve quality.

But the parties’ manifestos showed a relative consensus on housing policy. All agreed that housing supply needed to be sped up, with a focus on brownfield regeneration. All agreed on introducing some planning reform, with popular-sounding buzzwords to soften its potential risk. All agreed that reform of the private sector was needed. And all agreed that there was room for more social housing in the mix.

Meanwhile, more radical provisions such as rent regulation, ending the Right to Buy, or rebalancing the existing home ownership model, were off the table, meaning that there was little room for scare tactics.

What few dividing lines existed were either technical or risky. The Conservatives laid out their “cast-iron commitment to protect the Green Belt”, and while this was raised on the occasional front page it was never a fight which Labour sought. And few are qualified to, for instance, authoritatively debate the differences between Labour and the Conservatives’ leasehold policies.

The tightrope to a majority

One thing that has become clear since the election is how close things were in so many seats. While Labour’s majority is historic, it is built on precarious electoral foundations.

In housing terms, this was a tactical sacrifice of tens of thousands of votes in urban, renter-heavy seats, in exchange for those of suburban or rural, predominantly homeowner votes.

More so than in 2019 Labour’s electoral coalition contains a mix of those who are at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, and those who might worry that they would lose out from the change that is needed to solve it.

The parliamentary majority won at this election will make enacting this change easier, but making this a dividing line would have risked that majority. Labour’s ‘Ming vase’ strategy has successfully delivered dozens of MPs in previously safe Conservative seats like Hitchin and Gloucester, and talking more about planning reform or private rental reform might have lost a fair number of MPs who can now champion a wide range of progressive causes, including in housing.

This was particularly difficult in the tax-and-spend debate. So much of the election debate concerned the risk of future taxation from a Labour government, and so, while investing in skills, quality improvements, and unlocking developments may well ‘pay for themselves’ in the long run, any discussion of the amounts of spending involved would have led to further concerns of how to pay for this.

Linking the issues

Issues like the cost-of-living crisis and the state of the economy have been at the top of the political agenda at this election, but advocates failed to effectively link this to the high cost and low quality of housing.

In part, this is a symptom of the multiple crises going on in housing at the same time. The private renter locked out of home ownership and the historic resident of a dilapidated social housing block are suffering from different, albeit linked, policy failures.  

During a an election campaign, it was easier to speak of how delivering GB Energy could result in cheaper and greener power, than to explain to voters how reforming a tenure they weren’t living in, or building homes they couldn’t afford, would benefit their lives.

The real campaign is just starting

Does it matter that this was not a ‘housing election’? High salience debates often lead to polarising and extreme answers, particularly in two-party systems like the UK. And in housing, where so much is decided by the markets and private business, such populist answers can be particularly dangerous.

Whatever the state of the debate, Labour comes into office with a mandate to enact transformational change. Already planning reform is being mentioned as a priority for the first 100 days, and much more may follow soon.  

Now is the time of lowest risk and greatest opportunity. Debates about the scale of the solutions needed to end the various housing crises can be had without the risk of being turned into an attack line. And new MPs are more aware than ever of how tight their majorities are and the need to deliver for their constituents.

The task of advocates is now to drive the discussion with the hundreds of new MPs, many of whom care deeply about the housing crisis. Campaigners need to get better at demonstrating that the root causes of the housing crises, particularly the overall housing shortage, affect everyone regardless of tenure or security.   

By showing how certain reforms will help new MPs’ constituents, particularly those in marginal seats, campaigners can build a coalition for change in between elections.

This election may not have been a turning point in the debate. But, for housing advocates, the real campaign has just begun.

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.  

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.

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.

• How to talk about homes toolkit
• Talking about homes, homelessness and poverty
• How to grow support for building more social homes

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.