Housing 'Should Have Own Department'

The housing sector should have its own dedicated Whitehall department, according to the author of a controversial report into the management of affordable housing.  Alex Morton, a senior researcher at right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, said that ‘no one is responsible’ for housing and called on the government to use this September’s likely cabinet reshuffle to establish a stand-alone department.  He said that housing ‘sits unloved and forlorn’ in the CLG which he describes as ‘a Prescott style mishmash of various policies’, adding that ‘it certainly doesn’t exist to build more homes’.  Policy Exchange recently published Mr Morton’s report, urging councils and housing associations to sell off their most expensive stock fund new-build affordable housing.  He claimed that this could generate enough extra cash to build an additional 170,000 homes every year.  Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.