I would like to shed some light on the Coalition Government’s plans for house-building, and how our localism agenda will work to deliver new housing. This is a big topic and criss-crosses a series of often highly technical issues.
I therefore must begin with a caveat – with a position in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport - I am by no means able to provide high levels of technical detail, however as the local MP I am happy to share my thoughts on the broad policy perspective. But I also think it is important that politicians do more listening, and less talking. It has long been my philosophy and I hope that I will also learn about your frustrations and challenges.
If I were to try to put the Coalition’s plans for housing and planning into one sentence it would be that “we will promote radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups”. This essentially means that we will abolish anything that gets in the way of returning decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils – which includes new powers, for example to stop ‘garden grabbing’. We will be abolishing quite a lot – which I will come to.
Over time, we will reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the environment in which its inhabitants live. We will put before Parliament shortly the Decentralisation and Localism Bill. It is simple and gives a consolidated national planning framework covering all forms of development and setting out national economic, environmental and social priorities. But within the basic national framework, local government will have the authority to produce its own distinctive policies to create communities which are sustainable and attractive and reflect local opinion.
The days of local people detached from planning and housing policy are well and truly over.
That’s the overview, and if f you want more detail than I give today you could do worse than look at the Conservative pre-election green paper – Open Source Planning.
Like many local MPs, a huge part of my job involves sorting out problems in the area of social housing, so let me deal with this area in a little more detail.
Social Housing
When I was in opposition I often listened to young families who couldn't afford to buy their own home. I met tenants who wanted to move, but couldn't. I heard from people who wanted to work but couldn't afford to because of a crazy benefit system that rewards people for staying at home and punishes them for working. I was lobbied by estate agents and house builders who said they were tied down by pointless bureaucratic red tape. I spoke to Housing Associations who didn't want to jump through hoops any longer, just to pass pointless tick box inspections. I heard from the families in desperate circumstances consigned to the never ending Council waiting lists.
So I know it can be tough and over the last few years things definitely got tougher and it won't get easier anytime soon. We do need to face these challenging times together.
Public expenditure - CSR
I know you, like the rest of the country, are waiting anxiously for the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review. I can't give any detail, but its no secret that there will be cuts to the housing budget. I know that over recent years that the country had got used to Ministers coming to conferences and promising to spend “x” million on “y” new schemes to reach “z” target. But this Government was elected to cut public expenditure, to address the huge budget deficit and housing will take its share of the burden. If we don't there is a real threat to the economic future of this country and everyone will suffer.
To put it starkly: if interest rates go through the roof we will see more people losing the roof over their heads. If inflation soars we all pay more for less but it is the most vulnerable who will suffer most. So we must cut the deficit but, I do think we can also protect frontline services.
Public scrutiny and efficiency in social housing
How? First we all need to scrutinise what we are doing and why. This Government is putting its own house in order; we are opening ourselves up to public scrutiny like never before. This transparency is vital to driving down costs. So the Department for Communities and Local Government is publishing all expenditure over £500 on the Department’s website.
It is just the start. I think that anyone who receives public money - whether they are in central Government or Local Authorities, be they charities or industrial and provident societies, quangos or Arms Length Bodies - we all need to do the same and embrace a new spirit of openness.
If you receive the public's money it is time to open up your books, so that the public can see how their cash is being spent. Not just once a year in a stuffy and unread annual report, but in real-time.
I want all organisations in my Reading East constituency that take public money to publish in detail how it is spent. I cannot take any taxpayer funded organisation seriously if it refuses to do this without very good reason. And yes, I want to know how many people funded by the taxpayer think that their job is tougher than being Prime Minister. And we want to know how it can be justified to pay enormous salaries which are ultimately being paid for either by the hard work and toil of taxpayers… or worse, from the rents of tenants who maybe the people in society least able to afford your salary.
Of course the public also want to know social housing landlords are providing a great service with their money. Social landlords do have a good track record of levering in massive private investment to build homes and to support community development - a record they can be proud of in most cases. Without housing associations there would be an even bigger shortage of new homes. But with public subsidy reducing, they will need to find another model; other ways of doing more for less.
Of course many HAs are well down the track at squeezing the efficiency and value from shrinking resources. I welcome recent reports that have set out ideas to reform social housing finance. Over the last few decades huge amounts of the public's money has been invested in social housing. And for me that goes to the heart of the matter. How can we get the most out of past, present and future public investment? Are there opportunities for efficiencies that HAs and LAs can exploit? Is there scope to sell some assets and re-invest the money in more homes? How much further can they go by looking for efficiencies and savings?
One thing is for sure - whether we like it or not - there will be no return to the way it was because boom and bust in housing cannot be allowed to happen again.
Poverty and Regeneration
There are lots of lessons to learn from the past decade, because despite the previous Government's stated aim of tackling poverty, sometimes that wasn't the obvious outcome. Today poverty has become increasingly concentrated in urban areas; people are finding it increasingly difficult to escape the poverty trap; and 50 per cent of those in social housing don't have a job further entrenching poverty.
I know from my own constituency that these poverty hot spots lead to over-stretched public services, higher levels of crime, and poor education and health outcomes for too many people. If regeneration was invented for anything, it was to help these communities. Yet many of the same neighbourhoods that struggle today were struggling 30 years ago. We should not allow this to continue. Frankly, we can't afford for it to continue. The Coalition Government has pledged to tackle the causes of poverty and inequality and to protect the most vulnerable in society.
Let me be clear - the Coalition Government is absolutely committed to regeneration. But we have to take a different approach if we're going to get a different result.
Localism and Big Society
There is the mistaken belief that if something is broken, only the Government can fix it. This is just plain wrong. It's wrong for two reasons: It doesn't work and …It wastes money. The deprived communities in Bolton and south-west Wales (where I stood as a Parliamentary candidate) experience very different challenges to those of the poorest Reading wards and those challenges are best understood locally. The same applies when you look at Liverpool and Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. You will know how local people are proud of their differences and that is because they are different. One size does not fit all; people know best about how to change where they live.
Yes times are hard. Yes we need to cut the deficit, but we won't walk away from places where the market has simply failed. The people whose lives are affected know things have to change in their area, but we will make sure that people have a real say in making the necessary changes. And sometimes demolition may be the answer! Sometimes the answer will be retrofitting, sometimes it will be flats, and sometimes it will be new business areas. But local people know best.
For too long too much regeneration has been done TO local people, rather than BY local people and that is why we are devolving power to neighbourhoods and street level to develop the right plans to drive their areas forward. The Government is committed to this unprecedented and fundamental devolution of power. That is why we will ensure that Government and Councillors are held to account by communities for how their money is spent. The power of democracy will ensure that millions of pounds of public cash is spent more wisely and more openly.
We are scrapping regional planning, allowing communities and local councils much greater control and power over their own destiny and we are removing the regional tier of Government and abolishing the Regional Development Agencies, Regional Spatial Strategies and top-down housing targets.
Instead, through Local Enterprise Partnerships, we are placing responsibility for economic development with the people who really understand the challenges and opportunities their area faces so they can chart their own economic future.
Decentralisation
There has been too much of Ministers pulling levers, pushing buttons and blowing whistles... to no effect. That will change. We want to hand over the power. Whether you work in Local Government; for a housing association or are a builder; whether you are a landlord, tenant, or homeowner. We want you to have the power to make the decisions that you know are right for your local community. Why? Because I believe that the more we let go of power the more you can achieve.
Politicians and Governments do not have all the answers – if the past 13 years are anything to go by Government has few of the answers. So instead we are going to place our faith in you. As I’ve already acknowledged, the combined wisdom in this room far outweighs mine. So I think we need to listen to you.
The old assumption that Whitehall knows best and that Ministers knew even better was wrong. Targets have not worked, restrictive regulations have not worked, and simply spending money on too many initiatives has not worked.
So the government should simply set the framework for you to achieve the changes you want to see. Whether that's providing more homes or helping tenants have a stronger voice.
Tenants' power
And we need to give people the platform to get things done. When tenants are dissatisfied with the service, they need to see things change. Our Housing Minister has some ideas about how this can be done but they are not fixed in stone. For example, there could be Tenants' Panels that genuinely help tenants have a stronger voice in their local community. How about if tenants could complain to their panel? And what if those panels had real teeth to intervene? Then, along with elected Councillors and MPs, tenants' panels could act as a new gateway to the Ombudsman. Through these panels elected representatives would know which landlords provide the best service to their tenants. Landlords would become more responsive and locally accountable.
And when councillors consider new planning applications for affordable housing in their area, they could easily take the landlord's record into account when selecting their Social Landlord partner. Producing better and more responsible landlords wouldn't be the product of some large national quango, nor targets, nor additional standards, but rather a natural response to a system which properly puts tenants and their representatives firmly in the driving seat for the very first time.
Devolving power
We are not reducing expenditure just to save money, although the fiscal deficit is huge. The Coalition believes in a smaller state and a bigger society. So, yes, we want to do things differently. That means: stop setting up quangos; stop burning cash on consultants, stop putting our faith in expensive IT systems that don't actually work, stop using public money to pay people in the public, charitable and voluntary sector more than the Prime Minister earns. Instead we will trust local people through their democratic systems.
So my clear message is that we will be handing over power and control to local communities to make the changes they want to see happen. But it's not just about central Government stepping back into the shadows. We have to create the right conditions to enable local communities to step forward into the limelight. To enable communities to take the lead we have to give them the right incentives, tools and information. The Community Organisers and Community First programmes will encourage more social and community action, encouraging people to work together to improve their quality of life.
Regional Growth Fund
Despite the need to address the deficit, the Government recognises that we will need to support the most vulnerable places through this transition. That is why we have set up the new £1 billion Regional Growth Fund. It will play a central role in rebalancing the economy in those regions most reliant on public sector spending, by increasing private sector employment and growth.
Conclusion
I know that what I have said will not meet with everybody’s approval. Some will find it hard to change and adapt to the freedoms and responsibility that this Government is giving them. We have been through an era of very big government that was not entirely different from parts of Eastern Europe in terms of the size and scope of state interference and power. We have been told what to do and our daily live s have been intruded upon and interfered with constantly.
To suddenly not have to wade through the daily directives from numerous departments and organisations about your five year tractor production targets will take some adjustment. In eastern Germany and Russia, they hankered for a return to the security of it initially – and I expect there will be some nostalgia here.
But local democracy and accountability (freedom if you like) is something worth having and our radical plans will deliver exactly that to my constituents.