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MPs slam MHCLG’s ‘serial failures’ on housing policies in blistering report
The government’s failure to deliver promised housing programmes over the past five years has been branded “deplorable” in a scathing new report by an influential cross-party group of MPs.
In a savaging attack on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the department “has serially, constantly failed to deliver affordable new homes or even make a serious attempt to execute its own housing policies”.
The report accuses ministers of creating a “cycle of policy invention, abandonment and reinvention”, in reference to the Starter Homes policy.
An MHCLG spokesperson accused the PAC of “false claims”, but did not specify which claims it disputes.
Announced in 2015, the Starter Homes programme was intended to deliver 200,000 discounted homes for first-time buyers. But it was scrapped in 2020 without a single home delivered, despite £174m being spent on the scheme and 85,000 people registering their interest.
“We deplore the time and resources wasted by the department as it let the Starter Homes policy drift out of existence,” the committee said.
The PAC report noted that MHCLG is now introducing a similar scheme, First Homes, which will see homes sold at least 30% below market rates for first-time buyers.
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MPs on the committee warned that the government is unable to confirm when these First Homes will be available and said the policy’s reliance on developer contributions is “part of an opaque, complex mechanism which risks less money being available to local authorities for housing and infrastructure”.
The committee also claimed that MHCLG remains “unable or unwilling” to clarify how it will achieve its ambition to build 300,000 new homes per year by the mid 2020s and pointed to a “blurring” of the definition of affordable housing.
Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, said: “The department for ‘housing’ is at risk of losing the right to the title.
“It has serially, constantly failed to deliver affordable new homes or even make a serious attempt to execute its own housing policies or achieve targets before they are ditched, unannounced – costs sunk and outcomes unknown.
“MHCLG needs to ditch instead the false promises and set out clear, staged, funded plans backed by the necessary laws and with a realistic prospect of delivering.
“It also needs to ditch what is becoming a hallmark lack of transparency if it is to have any hope of rebuilding confidence among future tenants and owners that the decent, safe, affordable homes they want and need will ever be built.”
Commenting on the report, Tom Beattie, vice-chair of the District Councils’ Network, said: “The pandemic has underscored again the critical importance of appropriate and affordable housing in supporting the economy and in promoting health and well-being across everyone in our communities.
“While we support helping people to fulfil their dream of homeownership, this cannot be to the detriment of other homes that meets the needs of people who may not be in a position or want to buy their own home.”
An MHCLG spokesperson said: “These false claims ignore the facts. They are misleading and we reject them. Since 2010 ,over 663,000 households have been helped into homeownership through government schemes.
“Last year alone we delivered a quarter of a million new homes, the highest number in over three decades. We’re also investing over £12bn in affordable housing over the next five years – the largest investment in a decade – and our new First Homes scheme will help local people and key workers buy their own home, in the area they already live, at a discount of 30%.”
