Labour on housing - reading between the lines
It truly was a most extraordinary General Election result. I think we all knew from the day that former PM Sunak called it what the result was going to be… what we didn’t perhaps know was just how dramatic it was going to be… worst result for the Tories in their history… 412 Labour MPs… 72 Vestal Virgins… sorry, I mean LibDems (best result since 1923) and four Greens! Quite extraordinary!
Labour wasted no time to get going with a cabinet appointed within 24 hours and the first cabinet meeting on the Saturday. By Sunday, the inductions of new Labour MPs were in full swing and ministers largely appointed.
Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State, Angela Rayner announced that she will lead the “Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government” and signalled an end to “gimmicks and slogans” of the much fabled “Levelling Up” (the least said about that flop, the better).
The Housing Minister is Matthew Pennycook, who has held the brief since December 2021 and I hope and pray that I can write in five years’ time with a list of his achievements in office rather than present you with a list of housing minister names again!
So, we have our SoS and our Minister and then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves made all the announcements about mandatory housing targets and the updated NPPF and a very clear message that this Government is pro-growth and won’t be held hostage by NIMBYs like the previous Government.
Now for the reading between the lines bit!
Note the person who made the announcement… this is driven by the Treasury, because they have been told by the new Government, “we can’t raise taxes” so the only alternative to raising taxes is by getting the economy growing… and not just growing, there needs to be a boom.
The Treasury is after the low hanging fruit on the economy, physical things you can sell and in a post industrial economy, there is precious little you can sell (we sold utilities and that didn’t work very well). Selling houses is a very easy way to generate lots of money and lots of jobs and increase the tax revenue by volume of activity rather than bleeding us poor old tax payers any more… because let’s be honest, we do vote on the levels of tax we pay.
This means that there is going to be basically no compromise from the Treasury. They are after the money and that is why as the development industry is vital to the future prosperity of the Government and the country.
I am sure I am speaking on behalf of all of us when I say: “we’re here, we’re ready to help…if you help us!”
Until next week,
Henry
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