Isn’t it time we had a National Housing Service?

When people talk or write about the housing crisis faced in the UK, there are a number of key catch phrases that come up time and again. There’s the shortage of new homes being built at the top of the list. The reluctance of private developers to build them. A shortage of land to build on, especially where the demand for housing is highest. A shortage of skilled builders, electricians and plumbers to build them even if there was the land, money and will to do it. Insufficient resource and experience within local councils to push development through fast enough.

There’s the lack of regulation of letting agents, estate agents and landlords creating inconsistencies in practice standards across the market. The reluctance of mortgage lenders to provide finance on new build high rise blocks preventing more efficient use of higher density space. The so-called cottage industry that is the private rented sector, with amateur landlords accused of ‘riding roughshod’ over the needs of their tenants. A severe lack of social housing and sloppy controls over the quality of what there is.

There’s high house prices making the task of saving a big enough deposit nigh on impossible for most young people in London and the South East. Tighter mortgage rules restricting lending to any but those with sufficient disposable incomes. Non-existent wage growth and rising inflation putting even more pressure on people’s disposable incomes. Rising rents compounding this problem.

These are all challenges, but there in my view none of these is the biggest barrier to fixing our housing market.

Before any of these problems can be tackled meaningfully, we need to admit and address party politicisation of housing.

I get it: housing affects everyone in this country, it’s powerfully emotive and an easy vote winner for every party. It has the advantage of being tangible, aspirational and easily divisible by social (and therefore electoral) bracket. And the winning ticket? It necessarily takes years to deliver on policy promises made, so no politician ever needs to worry about failing to come up with the goods.

But look at this another way. The roof over our heads should be as basic a human right as the food we eat or the health of our children.

Health is a good comparator. The NHS might be politicised by each party’s approach to administering our public health service. But the NHS is also independent from parties and all parties agree the public wants to keep it so they fight to protect as much of it as possible.

Why oh why can we not have a national housing service? Housing is as integral to the wellbeing of British citizens as health and yet it is treated with perfect contempt by those in Westminster, who are – frankly selfishly – loathe to give up such a powerful vote winning policy area because it never has to be delivered.

This is not a new suggestion – countless government-commissioned reviews, leading economists and industry trade bodies have lobbied for years in favour of setting up an independent housing body akin to the Financial Conduct Authority or Bank of England but tasked with measurable targets to deliver a set number of new homes every year and, critically, to think long-term about the tenure make-up of the UK’s housing market.

It is PR 101 to distil key political messages down into easy to say, easy to see sound bites. But housing isn’t easy and the crisis we face is increasingly because we are reaping the results of treating it as such since the days of Margaret Thatcher and Right to Buy.

Currently the messages coming out of government are, for the most part, home ownership equals good, renting equals bad. This is just nonsensical. And where in that equation is social housing?

There are millions of people who rely on social welfare for a roof over their heads and following decades of government selling off council owned homes through Right to Buy, councils are now forced to push vulnerable people into the private rented sector. This is not inherently bad, but it is largely ignored by politicians and there is real fallout for these tenants as a result.

The fact that politicians within one party also fail to talk to one another and agree a united front on policy is a problem, but intragovernmental departments’ failure to communicate with one another is a bigger one. Witness the roll-out of universal credit by DWP and the concurrent tapering of tax relief on buy-to-let mortgage interest by the Treasury (note – not by DCLG).

The result of poor communication is vulnerable people unable to manage budgeting, falling behind on their rent and being at risk of homelessness. If these tenants lose their homes, it’s not because they don’t want to pay their rent or because their landlord wants them out – it’s poor management of an increasingly complex group of needs by ill-equipped and untrained public sector workers who lack the support to do a better job.

Housing is falling between the cracks. It might sound facile, but as a journalist I have to ring up public bodies for statements all the time. On housing, I am shunted from DCLG to DWP to Treasury to Number 10 and back again – always without an answer. It is chaos, and it is because no one person is responsible.

This brings me to my final point – the housing minister role must be made a senior ministerial position and it must be included in the cabinet. Not only would this justly reflect the role housing does and should play in the UK’s economy – it is the single biggest economic driver in Britain bar none – it would also remove the primary reason housing ministers abandon their posts on average once every 12 to 18 months. This position is seen as a stepping stone to greater political power.

How can it be justified that we should have a secretary of state for health and not one for housing? In moving to publish its Housing White Paper, this government has taken the first step. It has begun to recognise the problems faced by this country’s voting electorate. But it failed to let go the stranglehold party politics has on housing, something the Redfern Review warned against only months before government published.

If I could have one wish, it would be to take the decision-making out of politicians’ hands and put into the hands of a dedicated team of responsible and accountable professionals whose sole job it is to improve the living conditions of this country’s voters. Not only would this improve lives, it would be evidence that for once, government delivered on its housing promises.

Surely this could be spun out in the press as a positive step towards a stronger and more stable society? It would be, and that’s the strongest kind of PR anyone could hope for.