Andy Burnham must scrap the Whitehall quango Homes England if he wants his council house building revolution to succeed, his allies have told The i Paper.
The probable next prime minister has promised “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war era” – a plan set to be guided by his new No 10 North office.
There is mounting speculation that Burnham could break up Homes England, the public body responsible for delivering the country’s affordable housing.
Labour mayors are pushing Burnham – expected to become party leader and PM this month – to ditch the quango and hand over housing funds directly to regional mayors.
But the would-be PM faces a series of other major hurdles, including a squeeze on UK public spending, a shortage of construction workers and sluggish planning processes.
“Who is going to build them? Who is going to pay for them?” said housing economist Dr David Crosthwaite, voicing scepticism about a big council housebuilding wave.
Time to ‘abolish’ Homes England?
Homes England has been too slow and clunky at delivering affordable housing from Whitehall, said Dr Simon Kaye, director of policy at the Re:State think tank, whose advisory board includes Conservative and Labour figures. Scrapping it would be a “gamechanger”, he told The i Paper.
The quango has been accused by former insiders of being a consultants’ “gravy train”, dogged by long delays making decisions and spending money on the wrong things.
Burnham was one of the advisors for a 2025 Re:State report which said it would be more efficient to give public money directly to regional bodies to buy land and get homes built. “I hope he sees that it fits really neatly with his devolution instincts,” said Dr Kaye.
Steve Rotheram, the Labour Mayor of the Liverpool City Region – a close ally of Burnham – told The i Paper that the next PM should give “established mayoral authorities greater control over housing investment, helping us build more homes – including council housing”.
“Homes England does important work and has teams based across the country, but where strong mayoral combined authorities are already in place, I believe their powers and funding should be devolved to local leaders.”
Burnham has promised to ‘re-wire’ Britain with radical devolution (Photo: Phil Noble/Reuters)Regional mayors believe Homes England is failing to get social housing projects up and running quickly enough.
David Skaith, the Labour Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, said it is time to remove the “unnecessary red tape” overseen by the quango “that slows down our ability to get homes built”.
Richard Parker, the Labour Mayor of the West Midlands, would also welcome “the full devolution of Homes England regional funding to mayors”.
However, a source in the housebuilding industry said there was scepticism among Britain’s developers about the value of breaking up Homes England.
Some regional mayors may struggle to “spend all the money” due to a lack of planning expertise and a shortage of construction workers.
“Homes England has been good at pushing and pulling money around quite flexibly when things aren’t working out in a particular area.”
One option for Team Burnham would be to move some of Homes England’s planning staff to regional mayors’ teams so expertise is not lost, they added.
It is still working through social and affordable housing bids, interim chair Pat Ritchie said last month. She admitted that coming change at No 10 presented “questions” for the programme.
Big funding squeeze ahead
It is not clear how Burnham plans to pay for his council house building drive.
He will have to find an extra £4.7bn for his first Budget, if he makes it to No 10, after Keir Starmer committed an additional £15bn to defence over the next four years.
“With the state of the public finances, if you’re committed to the fiscal rules, is he going to be able to get his hands on much money [for council housing]?” said Dr Crosthwaite, chief economist at the Building Cost Information Service.
Burnham has called for the existing, 10-year £39bn affordable housing budget for England to be re-directed towards homes for social rent, the cheapest form of rent seen with traditional council housing.
It may see some of the money moved away from “intermediate” below-market rent and affordable ownership schemes.
Crisis in construction workers
The construction industry is still struggling with the post-Brexit exodus of European workers, losing almost 200,000 people from the EU since 2019, according to the UK Trade Skills Index.
And there is an ongoing problem with an ageing workforce, with too few young people being recruited.
The UK needs an extra 206,000 construction workers – 41,200 a year – by 2030 just to deal with current housebuilding projections, said the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB).
Sir Keir Starmer’s Government vowed to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament (Photo: Chris Radburn/Getty)Rico Wojtulewicz, director of policy at the National Federation of Builders, said he hoped small and medium sized firms would be “ready to deliver” on Burnham’s ambitions.
However, he warned that the exodus of EU workers meant construction staff from the north of England and Midlands had moved south to fill the gap, leaving “a potential for capacity issues”.
Slow planning process ‘getting worse’
Burnham’s plan to scale up council housing faces big hurdles with the current planning system, say experts.
Starmer’s Government has introduced legislation to make it easier to build on the “grey belt” – the lower-quality parts of the protected green belt.
There are plans for further reforms aimed at pushing housebuilders to complete development within a certain time or lose their planning permission.
Wojtulewicz urged Burnham to “supercharge” reforms. More must be done to speed up approval, helping councils and mayors overcome local objections.
“The process is getting worse – it’s taking three or four years to get approval. It must be made quicker,” said the building expert.
Burnham urged to ‘follow through’ on promise
Burnham has said he wants to “use vacant public land to reduce cost”, adding: “We will bring higher density residential development to our towns.”
There is a mixture of hope and scepticism among housing campaigners about whether or not he can deliver.
Prue Bateson, secretary of the tenants’ union Acorn Manchester, said unaffordable private flats made up the majority of new housing built in the city during Burnham’s time as mayor.
“I don’t think we’re seeing the actual benefits of affordable, social, and good quality housing for our members.”
But she still hopes Burnham can “follow through with his promise” to build council housing across the UK.
Burnham’s team was contacted for comment.
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