Lab 2012: Time for a Fundamental Rethinking Of Housing Strategy

At the Labour conference, shadow chancellor Ed Balls called for 100,000 more affordable homes to be built.  An apparent constraint on building affordable homes is the dire state of the public finances. Yet in this current spending round the government will spend £100 billion in this area. The problem is that 95 per cent of it will go on Housing Benefit and just 5 per cent on building badly needed homes. Part of the answer is to allow local councils with strong balance sheets to borrow against their housing assets to finance new affordable house building.  But we also need to drive a shift from current to capital spending over the medium term – reversing the shift from housing capital to housing benefit. In a recently published report, “Together at home: A new strategy for housing”, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has suggested a way this could be done, by also embracing a radical localism.  The centre-piece would be a long term strategy to decentralise power and responsibility for housing expenditure to local areas – perhaps local government – with a remit for meeting local housing need, including by increasing housing supply. If Labour was to be really bold and radical on housing, this is an idea it should be taking up.  Download a copy of the report from the IPPR website.