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Housing vision

Inside Housing finds John Healey eyeing the housing debate as a key part of Labour’s journey back to power

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Housing vision

John Healey shares a corridor in the bowels of Westminster with Jeremy Corbyn.

This means his camp occasionally find themselves barricaded inside by lobby journalists when the Labour leader is having one of his difficult weeks.

But when Inside Housing drops by to meet the shadow cabinet member for housing, the baying hacks are absent and the mood is buoyant.

The reason for this is obvious. A mile east on the opposite bank of the river, Sadiq Khan is pulling together his team a week after winning a crushing victory in an election he described as “a referendum on the housing crisis”.

This, Mr Healey believes, bodes well. “What Sadiq is doing is an important part of our ability to show what Labour can do in power,” he says. If Mr Khan has shown that housing is an area Labour can outgun the Tories (albeit in a city with a strong Labour core and a unique housing market), this is a success Mr Healey wants to emulate.  

But to capitalise on any dissatisfaction about housing, he says the party needs to first win the argument that housing is an issue that can be solved by politicians.

“There is a pessimism and fatalism about the potential for change which you often find when people talk about the housing crisis,” he says. “We just lost, one year ago, a general election catastrophically. That was the second defeat in a row. That tells me that simply conducting opposition as before won’t work.

“We need to provide a vision that things can change. If we can’t then we won’t be in a place where we can win the next election.”

The hope, he says, is that Mr Khan alongside Labour councils “from Lincoln and Exeter to Liverpool and Plymouth” can start demonstrating that the party can make a difference when it is in power, and provide an alternative to the “extreme and too narrowly focused” policies being driven by the current government.

Clear message

Is it a frustration, then, for Mr Healey that it is Corbyn’s Labour Party that is painted in certain sections of the media as being the one at the extreme end of the political spectrum? The question riles him.

“I haven’t heard that,” he says brusquely. “Can you point to anything that’s been said or announced on housing since September when I took over here that can possibly be branded as extreme?”

But if not its specific housing offer, isn’t that the perception of the party under Corbyn? After all, 36% of the public told an Ipsos Mori poll that was their view after the Islington MP was appointed - up a fairly staggering 22% from the position under Ed Miliband.

“Look,” Mr Healey says. “On housing and planning I lead. And you won’t find anything that Corbyn has said or that [John] McDonnell has said which I haven’t said or backed up, OK? That’s why he’s appointed me. That’s why he’s given me a fully-fledged shadow cabinet position for the first time ever.”

The message is clear enough. Housing policy under Labour is going to be driven by Mr Healey, not imposed by the leader.

In some ways this is to be expected. In person, Mr Healey is a bold, self-assured and experienced politician - amicable but unlikely to be pushed around. He is also an experienced hand when it comes to housing having served under Gordon Brown, and remained heavily involved in the sector since. So what does textbook Healey housing policy look like?

Firstly, he recognises the importance of the current government’s buzzword - homeownership. “When I was housing minister we had Home Buy. We had First Buy, we had shared ownership,” he says. “Homeownership is the first thing I tackled Greg Clark on.”

But the Tories’ hardline focus on its flagship product Starter Homes alone is also a clear dividing line.

“The Conservatives’ interest in housing is an interest in the politics,” he said. “They’ve got no interest in good housing policy and even less in getting a range of policies people need.”

And where do housing associations sit within this Labour vision? The sector caught some flack from the party’s grassroots after cutting a deal with the Tories over Right to Buy, and it was noticeable that in Mr Corbyn’s first conference address the new leader pledged a new generation of council, not housing association, homes.

But this is not indicative of where Mr Healey stands. “You can look back to that year when I was housing minister - there was a huge injection of cash into housing associations, and the local authority new build fund was open for bidding within a month. It’s not an either or.”

Louder voice

However, he does have a message for housing associations. “The sector went quiet after doing the deal on the Right to Buy. I think it’s disappointing that they made such little contribution to the public and policy debate around the Housing and Planning Bill… I want to see housing associations find their voice again,” he says.

This voice, he says, will be more important than ever as the arguments over the myriad regulations surrounding the Housing and Planning Act and the debate about housing benefit cuts are taken off the back burner post-EU referendum. Winning these arguments matters to Labour, not just because of their importance, but because it sees them as a way to gain credibility from a sometimes sceptical public.

Is this the masterplan? Mr Healey is emphatic. “Yes, yes, yes and yes again,” he says. “I believe housing can help make a bigger case for Labour for the next election and help Labour get into government in order to do what needs to be done.”

Whether Mr Healey can really deliver this will become clearer over the next four years - but it means the political spotlight is likely to stay on housing for many months to come.

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