Dispatches from the Conservative conference

Announcements on new policy were naturally left to the housing secretary and the prime minister, but Mr Malthouse did reveal at one event that the government will announce reforms to its Help to Buy scheme “very soon”.

Speaking to Inside Housing in Pizza Express on the Tuesday night after his exertions were over, the minister said: “No dessert for me, thanks.”

Once Mr Malthouse had looked up and realised he was not addressing a waiter, however, he said he thought the conference had gone well and that he had been encouraged by how many people had come to see him talk about housing at fringe events.

For any of our readers wondering, the minister went for a crispy Romana.

Housing secretary James Brokenshire was a little harder to spot, but he did confirm in his speech to the conference that the government will ban the use of combustible materials on high-rise buildings.

Mr Brokenshire focused more on homeownership than social housing in his speech, but did add: “Fairness also needs to be felt by people living in social housing. That’s why I want to see a new deal for social housing tenants. To deliver decent homes, strengthen redress and break unjustified stigma.”

Unease in the grassroots

It’s impossible to deny that the government has been wooing the social housing sector in the past year.

On housing in general, too, the Conservatives have been keen to make their mark, with Theresa May declaring at last year’s conference that fixing Britain’s housing crisis is her “personal mission”.

Increased delivery targets and a renewed focus on social housing, though, have caused something of a stir in the grassroots.

At one session, a Bromley councillor in the audience told the housing minister: “If the government had met its immigration targets, the demand would be a lot less, and there would be need for a lot less housing. I represent a borough that has 50% green belt and settled communities, and we get top-down targets from the government.”

Many at the conference, however, saw building more homes as a practical necessity. It came up frequently at fringe sessions as one way for the Tories to win back young voters.

At the same time, most Conservatives Inside Housing spoke to, however, were instinctively wary of doing too much on housing, fearing that they’d be punished by their traditional voters if the values of their homes were to fall.

One young Tory activist told Inside Housing: “If you build too many houses, you get a Labour government. But if you don’t build enough houses, you get a Labour government. So you have to build some homes, but not too many.”

Later on another activist – speaking to Inside Housing at ‘Ken Clarke’s Midnight Drinks’ – gave a similar opinion using slightly more colourful language, saying: “Yeah, you have to do a bit on housing in order to win the election, but you can’t release the kraken.”

Owning the issue

Ultimately, although housing is well and truly on the Tory agenda, social housing is still something more of a fringe issue.

The people who mentioned social housing on panels were invariably representatives of the sector themselves, such as David Montague from L&Q and Elaine Bailey from Hyde. Mostly, Conservative politicians or pundits were discussing how to revive homeownership or increase overall numbers.

This, too, was the main focus of a session hosted by the Greater London Authority Conservatives on the Sunday night. The aim of this event was to create a manifesto for the party’s mayoral candidate, Shaun Bailey, by sourcing ideas from people in the room and voting on them.

Mr Bailey himself made a brief speech at the start, but he didn’t discuss policy and left before the ideas began.

During the housing section, some fairly outlandish ideas such as ‘abolish the planning system’ were thrown around, and social housing was not mentioned. The most popular policy idea was to build more homes on brownfield sites – radical thinking indeed.

BoJo no go (for council housing)

Meanwhile, the most popular event at the conference saw a distinctly anti-social housing tone. The entire event briefly turned into one big queue in the build-up to Boris Johnson’s speech, which saw him attack Labour for focusing on “state-owned housing”.

Mr Johnson, who many at the conference said would be their preferred leader, argued that the Tories should focus more on homeownership.

He said that Labour like people in social housing because “they know that as soon as you get a mortgage, as soon as you have a stake in society, you are less likely to go on strike and you are more likely to vote Conservative. And if you stay in social rented accommodation you are more likely to vote Labour.”

The jarring clash with Theresa May’s focus on tackling the stigma of tenants was not lost on sector figures commenting on Twitter. “What an out of touch dinosaur,” said one.

Dancing to the sector’s tune?

Regardless of the doubts of some delegates, Theresa May’s speech itself was a major change in government policy in favour of social housing.

After dancing onto the stage to ABBA’s Dancing Queen, she announced that the government will scrap the cap on the amount councils can borrow against their Housing Revenue Accounts.

This came as something of a surprise in the press room, given the party had briefed the night before that there would be no housing policy in the prime minister’s speech.

The sector’s reaction since has shown how significant it believes this move to be, with Savills analysis suggesting that it could see an extra 100,000 homes built.

Many have credited the decision to scrap the cap to Toby Lloyd, the prime minister’s housing advisor, hired by Number 10 from the charity Shelter, which has long called for this exact move.

This, coupled with Ms May’s recent appearance at the National Housing Summit, rounds off the government’s latest pitch to the sector, now including policy aimed at councils as well as housing associations.