On the election agenda

For the first time in decades, housing has had a serious profile in a general election campaign.

You just need to look at the manifestos to understand why. All the parties have made their own diagnoses.
For Labour, Britain is ‘in the middle of the biggest housing crisis in a generation’. The Liberal Democrats think housing problems ‘are now in danger of becoming a crisis’. And the Conservatives acknowledge that ‘people have been finding it harder and harder to get on the housing ladder’ (although it emphasises that this has been happening ‘for years’).

It’s certainly an issue the public want to talk about. Ipsos Mori’s issues index has shown housing steadily rise up the list of voter priorities - and this week, a YouGov poll revealed housing is now the fourth most important issue for voters (behind the economy, immigration and health). The YouGov poll placed housing as the second most important issue for voters in London.

The unhappiness of the public with the current state of play has increasingly been spilling out onto the streets over the last year - thanks to a new generation of housing protestors.

Inside Housing has carried out a detailed investigation into the aims and implications of the growing number of active housing protests in the capital - check out insidehousing.co.uk/housingprotests to find out more about the grassroots political housing activism that is likely to be a feature of London’s politics for the foreseeable future.

Despite all of this, the ‘big top’ housing announcements during the campaign have shown a worrying trend to focus on treating the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing the cause.

From extending Right to Buy to housing associations to rent control, housing has played a big part in the 2015 campaign - but the spotlight has been shining in the wrong place. At the risk of repetition, the country needs to be firmly focused on the importance of delivering homes in big numbers - and making sure stable, genuinely affordable housing is available to all.

All the parties actually have something to say on this agenda - but they’re not shouting about it and the national press isn’t (in general) pressing for more detail.

From Conservative plans to build 275,000 additional affordable homes by 2020, to Labour’s plans to deliver 200,000 homes a year by 2020, or Liberal Democrat plans for 300,000 new homes a year, the parties have been talking new build. What’s missing, of course, are precise definitions of affordability, funding and who the homes will be for.

This week, we publish exclusive Q&A interviews with Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Eric Pickles at insidehousing.co.uk so you can judge for yourselves the extent to which they are comfortable talking about the detail - and, indeed, the areas in which they appear keen for the profile to remain low.