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Conservatives’ reliance on developer donations prevents solutions to housing crisis, report warns
The Conservative Party’s dependence on donations from large property developers risks failing to solve the UK’s housing crisis, an anti-corruption organisation has said.
.@Conservatives dependence on donations from large property developers risks failing to solve the UK’s housing crisis, @anticorruption has said #UKhousing According to a new report by Transparency International, one in five donations to the Conservative Party in the past decade has come from property-related companies, amounting to £57.8m.
Between 2015 and 2019, just 10 donors, with a significant interest in the housing market, accounted for one in every 10 pounds of reported donations to Conservative HQ.
Transparency International’s House of Cards report, published today, said the party has a “worrying dependence” on a small number of property companies, which could prevent it from solving the housing crisis and providing more affordable housing.
The report said: “While we have seen insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt any direct quid pro quo arrangements of donations for decisions, this dependence creates a real risk of aggregative corruption, whereby the actions and judgements of ministers are incentivised by their party’s financial ties to interest groups in this policy area.”
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The report cited the recent Westferry Printworks scandal, in which housing secretary Robert Jenrick accepted that his decision to approve a planning application from a Conservative Party donor showed “reasonable bias”.
Transparency International found that ministers held 669 meetings with 894 separate interest groups to discuss housing issues between January 2017 and March 2020.
But the group said “Westminster remains woefully opaque”, with more than 40% of these meetings being logged as “housing” or “planning” despite government guidance against using generic descriptions like this.
Transparency International recommended that the government take big money out of UK politics by introducing a £10,000 annual limit on donations from individuals and companies. It also called for greater engagement of tenants and other marginalised groups in the development of housing policy.
Electoral Commission data shows that Bloor, the house builder, donated £150,000 to the Conservative Party in March 2021, while, in January, Countrywide Developments donated £62,500 and Canary Wharf Group £50,000.
Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International UK, said the Conservatives’ reliance on developer donations is a “serious concern”.
He said: “An unhealthy financial reliance on those with vested interests in one sector puts ministers under pressure to provide exclusive access, which creates a real risk that decisions are skewed in their favour.
“Breaking this dependence is key to removing the risk of undue influence and freeing government to explore bolder solutions to address the housing crisis.”
A Conservative Party spokesperson said government policy is “in no way” influenced by political donations.
They added: “Donations to the Conservative Party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them, and comply fully with the law.
“Fundraising is a legitimate part of the democratic process. The alternative is more taxpayer funding of political campaigning, which would mean less money for frontline services like schools, police and hospitals.”
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