Party-Poopers: Housing Goes Unaddressed in Conference Season

Flocks of politicians, journalists and party faithful descending on Brighton and Manchester in recent weeks can only mean one thing – the two major parties holding their annual conferences.

Political parties in the UK get together once a year to give stirring speeches, debate policy positions, and quarrel over internal bureaucracy. The combination of booze and fervent politico-types confined in cramped exhibition venues typically leads to at least one or two entertaining stories making their way into the headlines.

My personal favourites include Iain Dale (in a previous life as a publisher) taking down a protestor when his client, former Labour spin doctor Damian McBride, was being interviewed, and Theresa May dancing her way onto stage in 2018.

There were no major gaffes or moments of hilarity this time, unless of course you see the lack of focus on housing policy as reckless.

Yet another year passes by without the elephant(s) in the room being properly grasped. Our new Secretary of State failed to mention planning at all in his first speech since taking on the role and said housing just once. No prizes for guessing that the age-old cliché ‘brownfield-first’ was trotted out, with one vaguely interesting line on Metro Mayors getting more powers to shape their areas. The Chairman of the Conservative Party, Oliver Dowden, said the Government was “looking again” at the controversial package of planning reforms – I think we all know what that means.

We can perhaps excuse the new Secretary of State, given he took on the brief just days ago. Alongside concerns about health, climate change, the state of the economy, and distrust in law enforcement, the housing crisis is among the biggest challenges our country faces. For it to receive such little attention is depressing, to say the least.

For their part, Labour spokespeople had little to offer either. Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed, slammed developers for “land-banking” and said the Government wanted to “gag residents”. After witnessing the Liberal Democrat’s successful raid on the Tories in Chesham and Amersham, perhaps Steve has drunk the anti-development Kool-Aid.

In fairness, Lucy Powell, Shadow Minister for Housing, had some interesting lines on positioning Labour as the party of homeowners and tenants, and a proposal to link affordable housing to local wages, not rents. Though, as ever with the Labour Party, these green shoots were quickly overshadowed by factional in-fighting.

There’s no doubt “Jon Bon-Govey” is a serious politician, and it’s welcome that he brings at least some form of intellectual curiosity to the brief (though it’s not hard to look thoughtful when lined up next to the rest of the Cabinet).

However, evidence suggests the Government has kicked any real root and branch rethink on housing policy into the long grass. Only time will tell…