It seems hard to believe that Labour’s first five months in power have been so dispiriting. They came into government with bellows of goodwill behind them.
Now not only have they resembled the shambles that preceded them, but the green shoots of economic growth have been stamped out by a Budget full of anti-business measures and an Employment Rights Act which will be just as much a job killer as the national insurance rise for employers, and their less than ambitious housing targets are already looking unachievable.
In politics, it’s always better to under-promise and over-deliver. Yet in its manifesto Labour promised to build fewer houses than the Conservatives over five years, trailing the Tories’ 1.6 million figure by 100,000 homes. And now, according to sector experts, they are falling behind even that modest target.
Some may say it is too early to judge, but that’s not something that has held back the independent and respected think-tank the Centre for Cities. It says Labour are, even at this early stage of the Parliament, predicted to be nearly 400,000 houses behind their target.
Labour also promised radical planning reforms to free up more land for housebuilding. But just as the Conservatives did before them, Labour is finding huge resistance to even minimal reforms to the planning system.
Vested interests are coming together to block everything, from individual parish councillors right up to the bigger housebuilders, who worry too many houses being built will impact their profitability. These companies could easily meet the targets if they wanted to, given the huge banks of land they already own but refuse to develop.
Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, knows all this and has a good understanding of the lobby groups determined to scupper her plans.
There is one way around all this, and that is to empower and incentivise small and medium -sized housebuilders. They hold the key to Rayner’s potential success. At the moment, they feel trampled on by their bigger competitors, who are accused of honing anti-competitive practices to ensure that the smaller companies “know their place”.
In addition, the smaller housebuilders complain about the lack of skilled labour in the sector. There are not enough brickies or tradespeople being trained. This is where joined-up government needs to come in.
My old podcast partner – and now Apprenticeships Minister – Jacqui Smith needs to get together with Rayner to lobby Chancellor Rachel Reeves to give a massive boost to apprenticeships in the housebuilding sector. There need to be further incentives for small and medium-sized housebuilders to rapidly expand their operations. What a shame the employers’ NIC rise has added £2,500 to the cost of every employee once you employ five or more people. A very strange way to encourage economic growth.
It’s not possible to abolish Nimbyish attitudes overnight – or, probably, ever. This is why in the case of housebuilding, localism doesn’t work. Most local communities, especially in rural areas, will always want housing developments voted down by planning committees. And given councillors on planning committees have an eye to re-election, they get their way far more often than they should. But if you continually say you will respect local people’s wishes, then don’t be surprised if you never achieve your housebuilding targets.
That does not mean I wish to trample all over the green belt. But there are many areas of so-called “Outstanding Natural Beauty” which are nothing of the sort. I know. I own one.
It’s an eight-acre field which is bordered on one side by a housing estate and on the other by an old people’s home. It’s a bog standard field. It used to be a fruit farm but all the apple trees were uprooted in the Great Storm of 1987 –- the same one in which Kent’s Sevenoaks became One Oak.
It is located on the edge of the village, and a mile-and-a -half from the local general hospital. It’s an ideal location for new houses for local hospital employees. I looked into what it would entail to build on the plot but the planning process would take years, with little prospect of success and at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds. I didn’t take it further.
Multiply that over the rest of the country and that’s where, if she gets it right, Angela Rayner can get her 1.5 million homes from.
Let’s hope she has the political nous and courage to bulldoze her way through all the obstacles that are being placed in front of her. So far, I’m not optimistic.
