The next general election is probably a year away or so. The Conservatives must go to the country by the end of 2024.
Elections are usually a summer thing perhaps because turnout, the number of people that bother to vote, is thought to be higher if the weather is warm and the nights longer. This one may be different though as the Government is currently splattered across the ropes and will be desperate to time the poll alongside any iota of something positive to celebrate and therefore we may well be visiting polling stations in October or November next year.
Right now the prospect of tangible good news for the country looks distant as does the possibility that Rishi will achieve his famous Five Pledges. As politicians’ promises go, there’s more chance of a flock of pink, four legged omnivores taking off from Stansted than our hapless Prime Minister fulfilling his goals. Did he say he’d eat an item of his clothing if he fails? If so I hope it’s his trousers so that he can buy a pair that fit him instead.
In the run up to encouraging 46 million voters to put a cross in their box, the Tories need to contend with and defend an economy that’s on life support, a situation encouraged by the lunatics at the Bank of England who are toying with interest rate rises regardless of their lack of effect on supply side inflation and in spite of the squeeze they place on our day to day costs. Anyone would think that Andrew Bailey’s £550,000 salary was targeted upon dragging us into recession.
Crime levels are rampant and 95% of Britain’s crimes go unsolved with fewer and fewer criminals imprisoned as a percentage of crimes committed.
Immigration is a free-for-all via the Calais branch of Dinghies R Us, the only beneficiaries being hotel owners and barge builders – oh, and Serco’s shareholders.
Culture wars and identity politics are out of control and a huge, unnecessary distraction.
And the race to further economic hardship through a misplaced obsession with ‘net zero’ and electric car domination is on, then off, then on. Then off again. A bit like our lights will be in a few years time if we are to be wholly energy reliant on wind and sun, as a nation that often sees neither.
And as for housing, well this will feature prominently in media headlines and the election leaflets of the next 12 months or so…
We all enjoy a game of football and where politicos are concerned none more so than where property is concerned. They kick the subject around from idea to headline and back again with players of all parties equally as bad at promoting hyperbole over substance. Except that in this game the goals scored are only ever own-goals, given that it’s rare that any policy proclamation actually progresses to fruition nor even begins to solve the problems that exist within the housing market.
Nonetheless we will soon be subjected to a race via many, many party political broadcasts to announce the biggest and boldest vows to ‘build more homes’. Mostly, politicians will spend time telling us that we need more housing construction and also why we do, statements that teeter on the bleedin’ obvious and that do not require hundreds of thousands of pounds in taxpayer funded MP salaries to tell us so.
The missing bit in all of the well-worn rhetoric is the ‘how’ – but we won’t hear much about that simply because politicians and civil servants don’t know how to actually deliver on building the right homes at the right volume in the right places. Where housing is concerned our political overseers are about as innovative as an Amish rocket scientist.
As the country’s population grows and people live longer we build less than we did in the 1960’s. To put this into perspective the UK population is 23% larger than in 1968 yet we build 40% fewer homes now than we did then*.
This imbalance and the artificially low interest rate environment we had from 2009 until 2022 have been the cause of rampant house price inflation and, some think, also a vulnerability to values falling just as significantly as they have risen.
Most of you won’t know the name of the current Housing Minister, the 15th since 2010 and the 6th in eighteen months, without Googling it. Even less so her shadow (there’s a 50/50 clue for you). It should be obvious to all of us that the very worst hands in which to place the future of Britain’s house-building are those of politicians and civil servants.
Yet similarly you can’t leave supply entirely to the private sector and the free market either and I say that as a passionate free-marketeer. Because when we end up with 70% of all UK homes being built by just a dozen private house-builders it should be no surprise that they put their shareholders first and will control supply as it suits their P&L rather than society as a whole. Why wouldn’t they?
The solution is to take the politics out of housing and to side-step our reliance on PLC developers also.
The way that we do this is to set up a national housing corporation owned by the taxpayer but run by a board and a management team ‘as’ a private sector company and that are given a ten year mandate to identify housing need (tenure and volume) and utilising publicly owned land.
Once need is identified and public land requisitioned in each area the necessary homes, private, affordable and social, would be fast tracked through a streamlined planning process and built by the housing corporation rather than the land just sold to developers. Ultimately, those sold at full value would make a margin sufficient for the scheme to eventually stand on its own two feet and to make a profit that would be returned to the taxpayer.
Unless someone has a better idea?
p.s : If you’re a politician, there’s no need to raise your hand. We need answers that will be delivered upon – not just speeches.
* In 1968 the UK population was 55 million compared to 68 million now, some 23% larger. Last year we built 252,500 new homes versus 425,800 then, 40% less.
Russell Quirk is Co-founder of PropertyPR and a well-known media commentator on property and politics
