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Morning Briefing: Brokenshire caught out over social housing numbers
Housing secretary James Brokenshire has been left red-faced after not knowing how much social housing was built last year, and other housing news
During a panel show on radio station LBC last night, Mr Brokenshire was asked how many of the total 220,000 homes delivered last year are social housing, to which he answered: “There will be a mixture within that.” When another guest Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse suggested it was 6,000, Mr Brokenshire replied: “I haven’t got the specific breakdown of the numbers.”
Host Iain Dale said he was “astonished” that Mr Brokenshire did not know the figure.
Meanwhile, a new report has called for wealthier homeowners to make a voluntary payment of up to £30,000 for their care needs in older age.
The report’s author, former work and pensions secretary Damian Green, told the BBC that if “just a sliver” of the equity tied up in property could be released, it would inject substantial amounts of funding to help plug the current gap.
However, shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the government should ignore the proposal as it would “punish older people with a tax on getting old”.
Another report out today has suggested that social mobility in the UK is “virtually stagnant”. The Social Mobility Commission study argued that inequality will remain entrenched in the UK “from birth to work” if the government fails to act.
The commission is urging the government to offer extra funding for older teenagers in education and extend free childcare to more low-income families.
The government will take the recommendations seriously, the BBC reported.
Elsewhere, a rugby union star has said his career is being affected by the stress of living in a high-rise flat covered in “dangerous” cladding.
Josh Beaumont, son of England legend and former Question of Sport captain Sir Bill Beaumont, told Manchester Evening News that the psychological impact of living in the flat in Manchester has affected his career.
The Sale Sharks player bought the Bellway-built flat in Castlefield with a view to renting it out in future but said he feared it could now be virtually worthless. Last week Inside Housing featured Mr Beaumont as part of its End Our Cladding Scandal campaign coverage.
Finally, the BBC asks whether cities worldwide really are now “unaffordable”, with case studies looking at Edinburgh and Berlin. Protests over the price of housing have also been seen in Dublin, Venice and Johannesburg in recent weeks, the report notes.
On social media
The #EndOurCladdingScandal campaign momentum continues:
Shouldn’t take a campaign coordinated by a trade publication to kick Govt into doing what it should have been doing all along. The #EndOurCladdingScandal campaign is a great piece of work by @insidehousing - but this is poor from Govt. Such procrastination unacceptable #ukhousing
— Neil Goodrich 💚 (@NGoodrichHsg)>Shouldn't take a campaign coordinated by a trade publication to kick Govt into doing what it should have been doing all along. The #EndOurCladdingScandal campaign is a great piece of work by @insidehousing - but this is poor from Govt. Such procrastination unacceptable #ukhousing
— Neil Goodrich \uD83D\uDC9A (@NGoodrichHsg) April 30, 2019
