‘Pitiful’ social housing plans

The Tories’ new social housing plans have been branded “pitiful” because they contain no new investment to build desperately needed homes.

Housing secretary James Brokenshire said the proposals – which include plans to streamline the complaints process and publish landlord “league tables” – will help “improve fairness, quality and safety for residents living in social housing across the country”.

But Labour derided the plans as “pitiful” for failing to commit “a single extra penny” to housing construction, while Unite said only a “massive council house building programme” will end the Tories’ self-inflicted housing crisis.

It comes after Brokenshire was left with egg on his face after admitting that the government’s new £100m scheme to end homelessness within 10 years contains no fresh funding.

Meanwhile housing minister Kit Malthouse conceded that the construction of affordable homes would stay at a record low throughout 2019.

Only 5,900 social housing units were built last year – the lowest amount since records began.

During the same period 1.15m households in England were on waiting lists for social housing but only 290,000 homes were made available, official figures obtained by the housing charity Shelter show.

Labour’s shadow housing secretary John Healey said, “Nothing in this social housing green paper measures up to the scale of the crisis.

“It’s pitiful that while Conservative cuts have driven the number of new social rented homes to a record low, there is not a single penny of new money to increase supply.”

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said the system needs to be rebalanced through investment in council house building programmes to create homes and decent work, as well as by introducing rent controls and regulations on private landlords.

He said, “We must embark on a massive council home building programme — we need at least 250,000 homes built each and every year to keep up with demand.

“A housebuilding programme itself confers economic benefits beyond helping drive down housing costs – our research has shown that for every £1 spent on housing construction, an extra £2.09 is generated in the economy. Each £1 also generates a 56p return to the Exchequer.”

Turner added that only a Labour government would be able to deliver such reform.

He said, “Labour not only offers bold proposals but the party has backed it up with a detailed plan to deliver on these proposals… Labour is the only party that can effectively tackle a housing crisis that gets worse each and every year.”