Reed vs Jenrick: who can take credit for new homes?

Starts have bounced back since Labour came to power and immediately signalled its support for housebuilding and planning reform, but an average of fewer than 30,000 per quarter is nothing to shout about.

While starts may be an early indicator of progress, you can’t live in a start: if Mr Reed had looked at completions over the last year he would have had to report a 10% fall on a year earlier.

“Starts have bounced back since Labour came to power and immediately signalled its support for housebuilding and planning reform, but an average of fewer than 30,000 per quarter is nothing to shout about”

Mr Jenrick’s claim requires even more salt, and also owes much to a recovery after a slump, this time from Covid.

His spell as housing secretary between July 2019 and September 2021 will probably be remembered mostly for his unlawful approval of a housing development proposed by a Conservative donor, but he did at least attempt to reform planning more generally before being blocked by Downing Street. Housing starts did rise in that period, reaching 175,000 in 2021-22 as they recovered from the pandemic.

However, that boast about “the highest level in my lifetime” does not stand up to scrutiny: since Mr Jenrick was born in January 1982, there have been six years with higher starts and three in which they’ve exceeded 200,000.

So even in their own terms there is shaky evidence to back up both housing secretaries’ claims. What dumps a whole barrel of salt on them is the way that both used starts as the basis of their boasting.

It’s long been known that housebuilding starts and completions statistics significantly under-estimate delivery of new homes. That’s partly because they do not include homes created via conversions and change of use (or allow for demolitions), but mostly because they are based on building control returns.

Thanks to the privatisation of building control in the 1980s and uncertainties over data collection, starts and completions statistics have become more and more inaccurate over time.

That’s why the government’s preferred measure, and the basis of the 1.5 million new homes target, is net additional dwellings.

The gap between the two has been growing over time: since 2001-02 there have been 3.5 million starts and completions but 4.6 million net additional homes.

“Targets can concentrate minds and influence priorities in government, but it is hard to find anyone apart from Steve Reed who believes that it is possible to meet this one”

On this basis, Mr Jenrick’s first year in office (2019-20) saw record net additions of 249,000, but he can hardly claim credit for that. Net additions fell to 218,000 in the pandemic year of 2020-22 and recovered to 234,000 in 2021-22.

By contrast, 2024-25 saw 209,000 net additions, most of them under Labour but the product of decisions made under the Tories given delays in construction.

Statistics on housing supply now include more up-to-date estimates, enabling Mr Reed to boast that 309,600 new homes were delivered between the start of this parliament in July 2024 and 11 January this year. His department says this means that “the government has now surpassed a fifth of its 1.5 million homes target”.

What it did not add was that this was achieved in 18 months rather than 12: 309,600 leaves 1.19 million to be delivered in the next three and a half years, or 340,000 a year.

Targets can concentrate minds and influence priorities in government, but it is hard to find anyone apart from Steve Reed who believes that it is possible to meet this one. And, even if it could be achieved, 1.5 million homes will not make homes much more affordable on their own. The point is to get a sustained increase over a long period.

Success for this government should instead be judged more in terms of the system it puts in place to deliver for the long term, and here it has a good story to tell in terms of planning reform, new legislation and work to establish a new generation of new towns.

But with politics as febrile as it currently is, will Steve Reed and the Labour government even make it to the long term?

And, even if Robert Jenrick still believes in the case for more homes, will he be able to shake Reform’s core belief that the solution to the housing problem is simply to cut immigration?

Both housing secretaries made a start. Will either of them finish the job?

Jules Birch, columnist, Inside Housing