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Westminster mole: Make way for the big guns
Published 01 January 2024
Roof’s parliamentary correspondent reports
If you look at the number of times housing is mentioned in the national media every day, you might think the housing spokespeople on the Commons’ front benches would be at the forefront of ‘state of the nation’ debates as parliament thrashes its way through the economic crisis.
But no. Both housing minister Margaret Beckett and her Conservative shadow Grant Shapps have been keeping a low profile recently. Although some indications have emerged from Communities and Local Government, we’re still waiting for the new minister to firmly nail her colours to the mast on a number of policies – the future of the private rented sector, tenancies, allocations, social housing grants, to name but a few.
Her main impact so far has been the revelation made in a Communities and Local Government select committee that three million was actually an ambition, rather than a fully-blown target.
The housing sector was quick to ring the alarm bells, but the minister hadn’t told us anything we didn’t already know. Does this mean that the government is distancing itself from the three million target so triumphantly announced back in 2007?
Probably – and for obvious reasons. But is Margaret Beckett any less committed to finding ways to get more homes built than her predecessors? There’s no real evidence of that. As usual the headlines didn’t tell the full story, as the minister also used the select committee session to reiterate the government’s commitment to meeting housing need.
As for Grant Shapps, he’s been equally elusive and was nowhere to be seen at the Queen’s Speech housing debate. Though maybe this was just a reflection of the wider mood, given that housing wasn’t mentioned once in the speech and did not get its own debate, being bundled up with work and skills instead.
But all credit to the Lib Dems then who decided that housing was their priority. They put their housing spokesperson Sarah Teather up to lead the debate, and she gave a strong analysis of the landscape.
Taking the lead for the Conservatives, Bob Neill, MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, gave an impassioned indictment of the government’s record. Oddly, he slammed the government for abandoning the three million target and for weakening their position on eco-towns – two policies utterly loathed by the Conservatives.
It’s not that housing isn’t a priority for parliamentarians; it’s just that the problems of the housing market have become too big to be confined to a single policy silo. Repossessions, house prices, access to mortgage finance – all this is now the stuff of big set piece commons events like prime ministers questions, rather than the niche debates where Shapps and Beckett normally get to strut their stuff. Ironically, during a housing crisis it seems to be the housing leads who get sidelined, as the parliamentary big guns brush them aside.
When housing has been debated in parliament recently, it’s taken on an economic tinge. For example, MPs have used the Banking Bill’s progression through the Commons to call for changes to mortgage law, and the Treasury select committee has been rigorously investigating the banking crisis from every angle, housing included.
All of this is well and good, as long as we don’t forget that behind today’s financial crisis headlines lie the day-to-day nuts and bolts of yesterday’s housing policy.
The housing minister and her shadows may not get much of the limelight on the glamorous end of housing policy, but one way or another what they do now will help form tomorrow’s headlines.
