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Javid’s ‘total commitment’ to social housing appears to have waned
Sajid Javid’s first major fiscal event as chancellor was a worrying sign that housing is dropping down the priority list. That’s not what many expected on his appointment, writes Peter Apps
It isn’t the housing minister who matters – it’s the chancellor.
That’s a truism which those who follow housing policy closely have always repeated. Do what you like to convince the housing minister, it’s the politician holding the pursestrings who matters.
This gave some succour to those who were pessimistic about the shape of Boris Johnson’s new cabinet. In Sajid Javid we appeared to have a chancellor who knew and cared about housing policy.
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It was Mr Javid, after all, who walked on stage at the National Housing Federation’s (NHF) conference two years ago and delivered a speech waxing lyrical about the importance of social housing.
“We need to return to the time, not so very long ago, when social housing was valued. It was treasured,” he said. “Well, I’m proud to stand here today and say that you have a secretary of state who is totally committed to the cause.”
Two years on, this commitment seems to have ebbed away. Housing was entirely absent from Mr Javid’s Spending Round speech, bar a relatively minor boost to the cash available for reducing homelessness.
Dishing out some (pre-election) spending boosts, he told us the “people’s priorities” are the NHS, police and education. Which people are these? Clearly not those in insecure private rented homes, stuck on social housing waiting lists, living with parents or trapped in high rises with combustible cladding.
It’s not that money wasn’t spent. There were also big promises for investment in infrastructure. Mr Javid cited delayed trains and buses, slow broadband, poor mobile signal and high energy bills. But not a word on housing.
In fact, since 2013, this is the first big chancellor’s speech that I can remember which has declined to mention housing at all. While it was only a one-year Spending Round, with many of the capital commitments for housing next year already made, it is surely a sign of shifting priorities.
This should worry anyone who has spent the past few years “making the case for housing”, as the sector is fond of saying. You may need to make it again.
When Mr Johnson took over, the sector fretted that he might take the retrogressive step of returning to a ‘homeownership-only’ focus for housing policy. The fear now is that he might have no focus on it at all.
Of course, all of this may matter little. There is more going on in politics right now.
Even Mr Javid sidelined his own announcements to indulge in political jousting over Brexit – for which he was repeatedly chastised by the speaker.
It may well be that by the time you read this, we are officially counting down to an election. It is anyone’s guess what shape our politics will take in the months to come.
But what is going nowhere is the urgent need of millions in this country for secure, affordable and safe housing.
They need a chancellor who is totally committed to that cause.
Pete Apps, deputy editor, Inside Housing
