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We need renewed political support to help us build
The housing minister admitted this week that we need more social rented housing but the sector needs more than just words, writes Ruth Davison
Remember the heady days of the 2010 general election when the phrase of the day was “I agree with Nick”. Nick being Nick Clegg, erstwhile leader of the Liberal Democrats, then deputy prime minister and now an employee of Facebook. How times change.
But I was reminded of that this week when I read the Inside Housing headline: ‘Malthouse: percentage of social rented housing being built is not enough’.
“I agree with Kit,” I thought. Of course, we are not building enough.
At a conference yesterday, the housing minister was asked if he thought just 3% of 222,000 of new homes delivered over the past year, or 6,463, was enough social homes.
His short answer was “no” and he further said he hoped that lifting the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap for local authorities would herald a new era of council homes at social rents.
I hope that happens, too. The need for good quality, genuinely affordable social homes is so acute that all players are welcomed to the field.
While Mr Malthouse was reticent to give a figure for what the delivery target should be, we know from our own research that we need to build 90,000 social rented homes a year to make up for the shortfall.
“The need for good quality genuinely affordable social homes is so acute that all players are welcomed to the field.”
But the fall off of social homes delivered by housing associations is not because they willed it to be so. They didn’t just decide to build something else. And it’s certainly not because of that old chestnut: “they’ve lost their social purpose”.
I’m coming to an end of my 12 years at the federation. Over that time, the housing landscape has changed remarkably.
And perhaps the biggest change from a housing association perspective has been the level of upfront taxpayer investment in building and the level, and type, of private borrowing into the sector alongside the commercial activity required to cross-subsidise the delivery of lower, if not always, social rents.
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To put it more starkly, 12 years ago, for every £1 invested up front by the state, housing associations matched that with £2 of their own money or borrowing. Now for every £1 invested, they match it with £6 nationally. And after 2010, all funding for social rent and regeneration disappeared over night.
The government did invest in homebuilding but it choose to invest in private homes, sinking almost £29bn (admittedly as loans) into Help to Buy so far.
Given that, I’m really proud of a sector that continued to build homes. A sector that not only continued delivering but ramped up delivery.
And despite not a single penny spent by the taxpayer on funding the building of social rented homes or regeneration, it continued to deliver a handful of thousands of social homes each year and many thousands of others.
Many also continued to try – with other anchor institutions like local authorities – to regenerate places.
That Theresa May’s government has talked compellingly about housing and funded social rent again is hugely welcome. It is welcome too for our tenants and customers – while any secure home is better than none, a cheaper social rent is an even greater boon.
That Mr Malthouse is so open about social homes being a social good is hugely welcome.
“I’m really proud of a sector that continued to build homes. A sector that not only continued delivering but ramped up delivery.”
Nor perhaps is it surprising given his stint at the Department of Work and Pensions where he’ll have seen housing benefit in the private rented sector grow at a faster rate than housing benefit into the social sector.
Hugely welcome indeed but we need more than words. We now need renewed political support, such as reform of land laws so that housing associations aren’t bidding on the same terms against private developers who stand to make millions in profit.
I know he’ll find local authorities a willing partner in social housebuilding, and in housing associations he’ll find partners ready and able to deliver at scale.
Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.
Ruth Davison, executive director of public impact, National Housing Federation
