Our shambles of a government is out of touch with reality

The figures are pretty damning. In fact, they’re an out-and-out disgrace.

They point to a political regime that is broken – and under which we are unlikely to ever get any real and meaningful traction from Whitehall in the housing sector.

I’m talking about a particular department of government that has had more ministers since 2021 than Chelsea FC has had managers.

When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the decision to move Lucy Frazer into the role of culture secretary, it left the government looking for its sixth housing minister in the space of just 12 months.

In the role for a whopping 105 days, Frazer could almost be described as something of a ‘long-termer’ such has been the revolving door policy at Westminster. Her three predecessors lasted an average of 84 days in the role.

Those numbers are absurd and highlight to me, as well as many of my peers and colleagues in the sector, that housing is way down the list of government priorities.

Yet it should be one of the first items on the agenda as providing housing and accommodation has so many contributory factors to reducing so many societal problems and costs.

We hear regularly – almost on a daily basis – through the national news that the country is in the midst of a housing crisis with an estimated 8.4 million Brits affected by these issues, according to one BBC news report I recently read.

New research from the Home Builders Federation now suggests that housing supply is likely to drop to 122,000 new homes per year – more than half of the Government’s original annual target of 300,000 – and is a figure which represents the lowest level since the Second World War.

The people in power showed no backbone when bowing down to backbench pressure to make significant changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), making it easier for local authorities to refuse planning permission for proposed developments.

These changes only add to the ongoing challenge the industry faces in overcoming the obstacles posed by Natural England’s implementation of nutrient neutrality regulations demanding developers demonstrate there is zero additional nutrient contribution to rivers, estuaries and wetlands. This alone is holding up 100,000 planning applications across the country.

There is clearly an anti-development agenda in Whitehall which is posing serious threats to house building, and ultimately the wider economy, and the ramifications on society of such policies are huge.

As a result of the mishandling of the sector by the Government, the HBF research suggests that 378,000 fewer jobs will be supported, there will be £20bn less economic activity generated and £3bn less invested in affordable housing.

The knock on effects will be felt throughout the economy with a predicted £3bn less spent in local shops, £135m less generated in council tax, £100m less spent on new and improved schools and £35m less invested in local spaces.

These figures are quite frankly horrifying and what the housing sector needs right now is a true figurehead within Whitehall who can take the bull by the horns, get fully immersed in the industry to fully understand the ongoing issues and hold meaningful conversations and implement policies which are going to go a long way to alleviate the housing crisis the country is experiencing.

It remains to be seen how the newly appointed Rachel Maclean will fare, but I’m not holding my breath though as this Government has shown time and again over the past 13 years that it is so out of touch with reality, and housing is given so little thought despite the many societal problems it could help fix.