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End the housing minister merry-go-round, say sector leaders
Housing sector leaders have called for an end to the merry-go-round of housing ministers after the appointment this week of the eighth incumbent since 2010 and third in just over a year.
Kit Malthouse, who was previously under-secretary of state for family support, housing and child maintenance, replaced Dominic Raab who was promoted to Brexit secretary on Monday after 181 days in the role.
Mr Raab’s predecessor Alok Sharma was reshuffled to become employment minister in January after less than seven months in the job.
Paul Hackett, chief executive of Optivo and chair of the G15 group of London housing associations, said: “I think the entire sector is frustrated at the turnover of housing ministers and we’re crying out for some stability.
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“Housing is a long-term structural issue that needs long-term, structural solutions and to deliver that you would hope that we would have housing ministers in place for longer."
It is understood Mr Raab cancelled a number of engagements on leaving the role, including a scheduled roundtable on technology in the built environment.
Sinead Butters, chief executive of Aspire and chair of Placeshapers, said: “It’s obviously related to other things happening in the political sphere, and if this was an isolated incident you would say, ‘let’s be pragmatic, this happens in politics’.
“But the more it happens I think it starts to discredit the government’s commitment to sorting out the housing crisis. How can it seem that this is a priority if we just keep getting the minister switched all the time? It means that we can’t build relationships with them.”
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, added: "This is the eighth housing minister in eight years. Theresa May has made it her personal mission to fix the housing crisis and if the prime minister is serious about this, she now needs to make sure Mr Malthouse actually has enough time to get to grips with the real scale of the problem, and make meaningful change.”
John Bibby, chief executive of the Association of Retained Council Housing, said: “We’ve been here so many times before, that’s the concern for the sector. At a time when the government is saying the housing market is broken the lack of continuity has got to be a concern.”
“It would be nice if the prime minister would promise to keep him in post until the next parliamentary term but that’s not going to happen.”
Tony Stacey, chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association, added: “It would be good to hear from Theresa May that Kit Malthouse will be there until the next general election – it’s that commitment and leadership that the sector will respond to and if we don’t get it the government will struggle to achieve its housing objectives,” he said.
“I think this could increase uncertainty at a time when there lots of key issues to be decided.”
The sector is awaiting publication of the Social Housing Green Paper announced by ex-housing secretary Sajid Javid last September and originally led by Mr Sharma.
Ministers have said the green paper will be published by 24 July – significantly later than early 2018 as initially promised.
David McQuade, chief executive of Flagship, said: “We do need someone who’s going to have a degree of longevity to achieve the things that the government wants to achieve.”
Update: at 13.09pm, 12/07/18 A previous version of this article suggested that the Social Housing Green Paper will be published on 24 July, while it will actually be published by that date. This has now been corrected.
