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TEAM SNAPDRAGON AT PLMR ANALYSE THE HOUSING POLICY EMERGING FROM LABOUR AND CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE
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Labour
Corbyn opened his housing section of his speech with reference to Grenfell, holding that up as emblematic of the failure of the housing system overall and setting the tone for how his speech and policy would go. Under Labour we will have:
Labour are also shortly to launch a review of social housing policy – its building, planning, regulation and management, listening to tenants across the country – which will lead to them bringing forward a radical programme of action to be presented at Conference next year. It would be highly surprising if this did not include a state funded building programme and some form of greenbelt review.
It may be safe to assume that Labour are looking at Conference 2018 as their pre-election conference so anything they do now will effectively be manifesto ready by the end of 2018.
Conservative
Theresa May has apparently decided that housing is now her key delivery area. Sajid Javid will be delighted to have such scrutiny from No.10 – although the appointment of a totally inexperienced and seemingly invisible MP as Housing Minister now makes much more sense. Under the Conservatives we will have:
Greenbelt still seems sacrosanct – although even the Government can’t seriously think that is the case given that their recent calculations on housing need massively increased the housing need of many of those areas which are severely restricted by greenbelt. However, it would never be a political win to state this quite so blatantly and there are a lot of greenbelt MPs who will be feeling incredibly nervous about their prospects at the next General Election – whenever that should be.
The Housing Bill will contain more detail when it is published – when or when will that be? But it would be nice to think that perhaps many of the schemes currently subject to call-in or appeal may be viewed with a slightly less subjective and slightly more strategic eye than previously. Although, in reality, they still need to win seats at the next election and local MPs lobbying against developments continue to have a disproportionately loud voice in DCLG.
So, in summary, Labour are more radical but the Tories are being as radical as they get when it comes to housebuilding. They are concerned that Labour are stealing a march on them when it comes to social policies and are pretty much trying to take their territory before they can – although obviously without going so far that it scares people.
Expect much more info from both parties in the coming months – hopefully before the next General Election anyway…
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