Why a Labour government will be good news for housing

Rishi Sunak has ruled out a May election – never a serious prospect – but we know that before the end of this year there will be a change of government. Most of us, including Tory loyalists, agree a change is necessary. Americans have term limits. We have opted for sell-by dates – an equally effective way to end governments.

I was a member of the 18-year government of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, who left office with the economy in great shape. But we were boring and had run out of ideas. In 1997, Tony Blair told us “things can only get better” and for a while they did.

We all knew Tony wasn’t a socialist. He was the kind of leader many Tories were privately comfortable with. I often remind people that when Kwasi Kwarteng proposed reducing the top rate of income tax from 45% to 40%, he was only taking it down to the rate it was for 10 years under Blair. But Blair too suffered the curse of the sell-by date and 10 years after that great win, his own parliamentary party decided his being a closet Tory was no longer going to wash. Many of us think that had he stayed as Labour leader they would have won again in 2010.

The last 13 years since have arguably been the most difficult for any government of either complexion to manage since the last world war. A botched Brexit, the first global pandemic for a century, a fighting war in Europe, a massive rise in energy and food costs and a ludicrously inappropriate increase in interest rates all guaranteed that whoever was in power would be in deep trouble. Given that the current government has changed prime minister four times and spent more energy on political infighting than taking action, it would be astonishing if it went on to win a new mandate.

My sense, however, is that despite the current polls, the Labour majority in October/November will not be anything like as big as Blair’s. Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair. The former is most often described as boring, while the latter was seen as charismatic. The government’s coffers are not full. They are empty, so chancellor Rachel Reeves will have little room for manoeuvre. Ultimately, Labour will resort to raising taxes and given their obsession with the politics of envy, it is middle class professionals who will bear the brunt.

So far, their policy ideas have consisted of bland sloganising with very little detail attached. Wes Streeting says the NHS is broken and he’s right. But does he have a serious plan to rebuild it? So far, there’s been no sign of one.

The one area where we will likely see genuine positive change is the built environment. Labour will certainly reinstate the mandatory five-year land supply for local planning authorities and toughen the NPPF to give it real teeth. They are committed to 300,000 new homes a year and are clearly determined to deliver.

They are committed to the new towns that will be needed to handle these housing numbers and to giving local mayors more powers over planning and funding. They talk of a planning passport and fast track approval for high density development on brownfield land.

What is equally interesting is that Keir Starmer talks in terms of home ownership in a way which the left of his party seldom has. He wants priority for first time buyers, although he may find that easier to talk about than to deliver. In truth, while these are fine words, we know delivery is harder. But whereas the Tories seem to have simply lost the plot on housing, Starmer’s words do indicate a real change of direction. On housing at least, the signs from Labour are positive.