Latest news with #housingassociations
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Labour ‘staking everything' on billions in investment to reverse UK's decline
Labour is 'staking everything' on using billions of pounds of investment to reverse Britain's decline, Angela Rayner has said, promising people would feel the housing crisis ease by the end of the parliament. The UK housing secretary is now in a race to persuade housing associations to take on social housing projects, with nearly £40bn for affordable and social homes to be spent over 10 years, the culmination of lengthy negotiations with the Treasury. She admitted it was the start of a long road to attract associations under huge financial pressures to invest again in social housing. Many are turning down opportunities from developers when they offer section 106 homes as part of their social housing obligations. Rayner said it was still unclear whether the majority of the homes would be for social rent. 'We're prioritising social rent,' she said. 'Now we've got to go away and do some of the work with the social landlords. 'The priority of this government is to significantly increase the amount of social rents that are available because that is a real pressure point. I've got 164,000 children in temporary accommodation. You can do the maths on that. That is a hell of a lot so I need a hell of a lot of social homes.' The housing secretary admitted she had once had significant doubts about the government's ability to hit its 1.5m homes by the end of the parliament – which she still described as a 'stretch target'. It is a pledge that industry experts have suggested cannot be met. She said: 'We know the only time that Britain has built at that sort of level is the post-second world war era and that was with massive amounts of social housing. At the beginning, when we inherited the £22bn black hole, we had meetings and I said: 'let's reassess this, are you sure we're going to be able to do this?'' Rayner said there had been no cabinet split over the resolve to try to meet it. She said: 'They were absolutely clear that we've got to at least start to turn the tide on the housing crisis we've got.' But the deputy prime minister said young people in insecure tenancies or on the social housing waiting list would not immediately begin to feel the effects of the investment. She said: 'I think that would be a challenge because there's 1.4 million people on the social housing list, but what I can guarantee is that we'll have the biggest wave of social housing and affordable housing in a generation. Yes, we will see an improvement, but I won't solve the housing crisis that has been over a decade in the making within a couple of years, but I will get us on a very steep trajectory to the solution of it, and it will make a difference to people, this parliament.' Rayner also promised that allowing social landlords to raise rents by 1 percentage point above inflation for the same period – a key demand of housing providers – should begin to bring improvements in the often abysmal standards of socially rented homes and said the renters' rights bill should do the same for private tenants. The minister, who grew up in social housing while raising her son while she was a teenager, said she had recently visited a friend from school in horrendous living conditions. Rayner said: 'She couldn't use three rooms. It was a private landlord and she was frightened to raise it because the house would get condemned and then she'd not be able to live there with her kids, and the kids went to the local school. 'And she was paying ridiculous [rent]. I mean, she'd switched the kettle on and the washing machine would come on. The electrics were what I would consider to be really dangerous. And so I'm acutely aware that people have got really terrible living standards and they're too frightened to raise the concern for even low-level repairs that people need. 'They're really worried about the landlord having more power and then they'll just throw them out on a no-fault eviction. And that's why we've brought in the renters' rights [bill] because we want to give people more protection so that they can challenge and get these repairs done.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Rayner said two-year-old Awaab Ishak, who died because of the mouldy conditions in his council flat, was always on her mind. She said: 'We've got to do this as a matter of urgency because we've already had one young child tragically die because of the living conditions they were in.' The housing ombudsman said recently that 'simmering anger at poor housing conditions' could boil over into social tension. Rayner said she was acutely aware too of the frustration of the younger generation, unable to buy a home or a social tenancy, with costs rising amid a decaying public realm and public services. 'It does worry me,' she said. 'This is a generation that has not been given those opportunities, whether that's through not having the industrial strategy, not having the investment in our public realm and public services. 'We're doing that downpayment of investment now … whether that's through the energy transition, which will bring us security as well for our energy needs, whether it's the defence spending, which again is about security but will create thousands of skilled jobs. The construction industry, which means that those jobs will be available for people. 'It's a government that's going to do the hard yards to transform our economic outlook into the future.' Another cost expected to increase significantly as a result of the spending review is council tax. It is expected to rise by 5% a year to pay for local services, though at councils' discretion. Councils will receive a 1.1% increase in grant funding, but the spending review assumes spending power for councils would rise by 2.6% because of council tax rises. For many councils, that small increase will still mean running an austerity-level service, even if billions are being spent on long-term infrastructure. Rayner is a self-described 'creature of local government' and said it was the start of a long process of easing the pressures. But she admitted it would be 'challenging' for councils, even with the 5% rise. Rayner said: 'I completely understand what the councils have been through during the austerity years and you can't undo 14 years in 10 months. But we've listened and we're starting to do the recovery phase.'
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Rachel Reeves to unveils £39bn housing boost in spending review shake-up
Rachel Reeves will raise government spending on affordable housing by nearly double on Wednesday, providing a major boost to the housebuilding sector and bringing the government's housing targets a step closer. The chancellor will announce nearly £40bn worth of grants to be spent over 10 years for local authorities, private developers and housing associations – a major increase on the previous programme. She will also allow social landlords to raise rents by 1 percentage point above inflation for the same period, another key demand of housing providers. The announcement, which the chancellor will make during her long-awaited spending review, will make Angela Rayner and her housing department one of the biggest winners of the drawn-out departmental negotiation process. It is part of a £113bn increase in capital spending across the country, which Reeves will pay for with extra borrowing after changing the government's fiscal rules earlier this year. Reeves is expected to tell MPs: 'This government is renewing Britain, but I know too many people in too many parts of the country are yet to feel it. 'This government's task – my task – and the purpose of this spending review is to change that. To ensure that renewal is felt in people's everyday lives, their jobs, their communities.' A government source added: 'We're turning the tide against the unacceptable housing crisis in this country with the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation, delivering on our commitment to get Britain building.' The boost for affordable housing comes after protracted and occasionally fraught negotiations between Rayner and Reeves, which ended over the weekend just days before the review was due to be announced. The announcement will enable the chancellor to promise a generational shift in government investment, as she looks to turn the page on a difficult few weeks during which she has done a U-turn on cutting winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners and unemployment reached its highest level in nearly four years. The housing announcement will come alongside an extra £15.6bn for local transport projects and £14.2bn to build a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell C. Rayner was the penultimate cabinet minister to reach agreement with the Treasury, followed on Monday by the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who is reported to have accepted a settlement that could mean a cut to police numbers. Cooper, Rayner and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, have all endured difficult talks with the Treasury over the past few weeks as Reeves looks to limit departmental spending to just 1.2% above inflation. Miliband was reported to have stormed out of talks with Reeves's deputy, Darren Jones, who conducted the bulk of the negotiations, while Rayner is said to have insisted on speaking directly to the chancellor. Rayner's settlement fulfils her demand for a major boost to affordable housing funding, after warnings she would miss the 1.5m homes target this parliament without it. A recent Savills report warned that ministers were further away from hitting that target than they previously admitted. Reeves will announce on Wednesday that she will allocate £39bn to the affordable homes programme for 10 years from 2026-36, to be paid for by the extra capital spending she has freed up by changing the government's borrowing rules. That money represents a major uplift on the funding provided by the previous government, which allocated £11.8bn for the programme over a five-year period. Reeves will also announce a decade's worth of social rent increases, alongside a consultation on how to ensure that the cheapest rents rise to meet the most expensive ones. The extra money will help housing associations buy up thousands of new units that have already been built by private developers as part of their affordable housing commitments, but which are sitting empty because associations cannot afford them. Kate Henderson, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, called it 'the most ambitious affordable homes programme in decades'. She added: 'This is a transformational package for social housing and will deliver the right conditions for a decade of renewal and growth.' Mairi MacRae, director of campaigns and policy at Shelter, said: 'This increased investment is a watershed moment in tackling the housing emergency. It's a huge opportunity to reverse decades of neglect and start a bold new chapter for housing in this country.' The announcement will come a day after the government's planning bill passed its third reading in the Commons, another major plank of the government's efforts to reach the 1.5m target. Ministers say the changes to the planning regime, which will make it easier for developers to build on previously protected sites, are essential for easing Britain's housing crisis. However, environmental campaigners say they will put thousands of sensitive natural habitats at risk. The Guardian revealed on Tuesday that several Labour MPs asked the Treasury to intervene to protect the changes after becoming worried that the housing department would cave in to the demands of some backbenchers for stricter environmental protections. Meanwhile, Rayner has also announced she will repeal a 200-year-old law that criminalises rough sleeping, a move that campaigners said could prevent hundreds of people being arrested for being homeless. The housing secretary said she would remove the Vagrancy Act of 1824 from the statute book within a year, making it impossible for law enforcement officers to arrest people purely for sleeping on the streets.
BBC News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Belvoir local homes for local people poster condemned as vile
Posters with "local homes for local people" written on them have been put up around a housing estate in south are addressed to all housing associations, the Northern Ireland housing executive and private have appeared on bus stops, litter bins and utility street cabinets in the Belvoir Féin assembly member Deirdre Hargey described them as vile. "It is sickening these posters have been erected in this part of south Belfast - a clear and deliberate threat to international members of our community," she said."I am urging political and community representatives to show leadership and demand the immediate removal of this vile material."There can be no place for the hateful attitudes that fuel these actions in any part of our society."BBC News NI saw about a dozen posters on Belvoir Drive down to Old Milltown Road on Tuesday night.
