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Sharma: ‘Conservatives need to get housing right or face problems at next election’
The housing minister has said his party needs to get housing “right”, or it will face problems at the next election.
In a prickly session at the Conservative Party conference where panel members were challenged by the audience on several points, including this week’s £10bn Help to Buy announcement, Alok Sharma was unequivocal in stating the importance of housing for voters.
He said: “What’s really important in this whole process is that come 2022 people feel that there is a sense of fairness about the housing market. That’s fairness whether you’re looking to buy, or fairness whether you’re looking to rent.”
He added: “If we don’t get this right as a Conservative Party we will have an issue at the next election. The reason why people will superficially find some of the things that Corbyn is saying attractive is because they don’t have skin in the game… That’s the point, you’ve got to give people a stake. I’m a great believer in the fact when it comes to homeownership that it is a great social leveller – as well as building homes to rent we want people to have homes to buy.”
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Fellow panel member David Montague, chief executive of L&Q, said the government must invest across all tenures, not just homeownership.
He said: “If you go back a couple of weeks, you had Sajid Javid talking at the National Housing Federation conference and he set out this Macmillan-esque vision of investing across all tenures, this vision of housing for everyone. We were being prepared for something more so I’m hoping on Wednesday Theresa May will be releasing the other part of this Macmillan-esque vision because a lot of young people cannot afford Help to Buy. I think if we’re going to fix the housing market we really must focus on more than homeownership.”
He added: “I would suggest that if the same £10bn was invested in shared ownership rather than Help to Buy it would have gone a lot further, it would have helped a lot more people on lower incomes – people who really need help.”
Mr Sharma was questioned by Alex Morton, previous Number 10 housing advisor under the David Cameron government, on what is happening with the Voluntary Right to Buy for housing association tenants. Mr Sharma said the government “owes people an answer” but failed to give any further detail on what the next steps are.
