In 1913 The Times published an editorial arguing that “the homes of a large proportion of the nation fall far beneath the standard of health, decency and comfort which our level of civilisation requires,” and that “private enterprise is proved incapable of solving the problem by itself”. A century on the problem is more with the quantity than quality of housing but the analysis holds true.
Repeated efforts by Conservative ministers to cajole the private sector into building more houses have yielded only marginal gains. Demand still far outstrips supply. This is especially true for affordable housing as developers bank land instead of building on it and, too often, are allowed to wriggle out of their obligations to low-income buyers when construction goes ahead.
The economic and social costs of the housing crisis are well known. They range from lost productivity when key workers are priced out of cities where they are needed to soaring homelessness among families at the mercy of the private rented sector. The political cost to the Conservatives is now coming into focus. As Nick Boles, the former planning minister, says, it will be devastating if a generation is left off the housing ladder.
That is what is happening. The proportion of under-35s who own their home has fallen from half to a third in the past decade. Between the 2010 and 2017 elections the number of homeowners under 45 fell by nearly a million. In the past three years the proportion of voters listing housing as a top concern doubled, and voters aged 24-40 defected in large numbers to Labour. New research suggests that this, rather than any “youthquake” among people aged 18-24, accounts for the loss of the Conservatives’ majority last year.
Fixing the housing market is therefore a political as well as an economic imperative if the keys to Downing Street are not to be handed to Jeremy Corbyn. Theresa May claims to understand this. She has vowed to make housing a central plank of her domestic agenda. In practice that agenda is survival, but she has in recent months blocked greenfield development in her own constituency and vetoed plans for similar schemes on a national scale.
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Sajid Javid, the housing secretary, is not giving up. As we report today in the first part of a three-day series on housing, he is considering new “use it or lose it” rules for developers granted planning permission. Another proposal is for windfall levies on land whose value skyrockets when approved for development. Mrs May needs to get behind Mr Javid. She needs to encourage more greenfield building near cities, not veto it, and she should be requiring her chancellor to let local and central government borrow to build when the private sector prefers to speculate on rising values.
The prime minister’s former advisers call her a “tweed and wellies Tory” who knocks on doors only in leafy Maidenhead and has not experienced poor housing. Mr Javid grew up with four siblings in a two-bedroom flat. He deserves a better hearing. When so many are being mocked by the idea of a property-owning democracy and a diehard socialist is neck and neck with the Conservatives in polls, it is too late for nimbyism.
Later this year Sir Oliver Letwin, the former Downing Street policy chief, is expected to publish a review of land-banking. He should not pull his punches. More than a million plots of land ready for building are being sat on as their values rise, ensuring that they do by a limited supply. This is a virtuous circle for developers and a vicious one for everyone else.
“I believe in free markets,” says Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, “but I also believe in having a framework under which markets operate and that framework is laid down by governments.” It is time for government to intervene boldly where the market has failed.