A funder’s view on the party manifestos
27-06-24
Arun Poobalasingam, THFC’s Funding and Marketing Director, shares his views on the main political party manifestos a week before the General Election.
Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a General Election on July 4th sent the political machine going into overdrive in recent weeks, initially catching people off guard with its sudden timing.
The excitement (in Westminster!) of the election has led to breathless campaigning on all sides of the political debate, and, of course, the publication of various manifestos. The sector – THFC included – has been watching closely as each of the parties has set out its stall, in particular on housing, where everyone has had something to say!
Much of what has come out in the manifestos has been trailed in the media for some time, but there were a few new announcements. And while it is positive to see some ‘firm’ targets, the important bit, as ever, will be in the delivery.
Housebuilding
Each of the main parties included a headline housebuilding figure in their manifesto, with Labour repeating its pledge to build 1.5 million homes over the course of parliament and the Conservatives promising 1.6 million in the same period.
It seems both have decided that an annual target such as the 300,000 a year previously announced can easily be used to show how far short they are falling on housing. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems have set an extremely ambitious target of 380,000, which includes 150,000 social homes.
The Conservative manifesto reiterates its commitment to building on brownfield sites in urban areas using a “fast-track planning system” while protecting the green belt from “uncontrolled development”. Labour has also said it will take a brownfield first approach, but that it will also target “grey belt” land – lower quality land on the greenbelt such as car parks and wasteland.
Whilst it seems so obvious, we want to reiterate that from our perspective, we’d like to see a long-term plan for housing in the UK in which strong grant levels that support the development of new social housing are included. A key plank of this plan would be a long-term rent settlement, one that ideally looks beyond the confines of a parliamentary term.
This level of detail is probably too technical for the campaign trail as it appeals mainly to housing professionals like ourselves, but we know the timescales involved in the sector and if the next government wants to help housing associations plan large-scale development, then a long-term deal will be necessary.
Decarbonisation
Besides housebuilding, the incoming government will need to think seriously about how it intends to decarbonise the country’s existing housing stock. There was surprisingly little in the manifestos on decarbonisation, which was disappointing, given the environmental and economic imperatives of doing so.
Labour says it would invest £6.6bn to upgrade five million homes and reduce family bills under its Warm Homes Plan. On top of this, the party referenced the National Wealth Fund it intends to set up, which is expected to support the “most energy intensive sectors” to decarbonise. As a major contributor of emissions, one hopes that housing, and specifically social housing, would be included in this.
The Conservatives aim to invest £6bn in energy efficiency over a three-year period, which they expect to make around a million homes warmer. The party also vowed to introduce an energy efficiency voucher scheme to support households in England to implement energy efficiency measures and solar panels.
The Lib Dems, meanwhile, promised a ten-year “emergency programme to insulate Britain’s homes”, as well as new standards to ensure new homes are warm, cheap to heat, and produce minimal emissions.
While there is some reference to decarbonisation from the main parties, there is a lack of detail thus far. It is also worth noting that figures of £6bn and £6.6bn fall a long way short, considering research by Savills and the National Housing Federation (NHF) from 2021 which identified a minimum of £36bn needed to decarbonise housing association stock alone in England by 2050.
A key challenge will be in the distribution of this money. We have seen through ill-fated schemes such as the Green Homes Grant that setting aside the funds is just one part of the job – communication and distribution of funds are also important. With this in mind, we are keen to see the next tranches of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) accelerated to support the sector’s appetite for decarbonisation work.
A crucial part of the retrofit agenda is harnessing the power of private finance to support widespread action. As well as government investment, we want to see the incoming government identify ways that it can encourage greater investment from the private sector to support this mammoth task. It has become clear over the last few years that the scale of decarbonisation work required cannot be delivered by government funds alone.