Shaun Bailey is the MP for West Bromwich West.
I’ve been getting used to being quite a novelty. One of the new Conservative MPs from a traditionally working class, Labour area, and, more pertinently perhaps, one of the few Conservative MPs brought up in Social Housing.
Social housing saved me and my family when we were at our lowest. My Mum had just survived a torrid, abusive, relationship with my father. We spent a year living out of our car, sleeping on the sofas of relatives and not knowing where we would end up next.
My mum’s initial experience of social housing was a tough one. When we were (finally) given somewhere to live, after battling the local authority for over a year, the house my Mum was presented with was battered, dirty, and needed serious work to just make it habitable. My mum did what she’d always done; she knuckled down and she made it liveable. We eventually moved on and found the home that my Mum has now lived in for over 20 years.
The discussion around social housing and socially rented homes often gets confused with the debate around affordable homes. Of course, as a Conservative, I absolutely believe we should ensure that everyone is able to own their home, but the pursuit of our property-owning utopia should not ignore those people who may not be able to (or want to) own their home.
For me, and for the communities I represent, social housing is a bedrock.
For me, it provided somewhere safe, somewhere I could thrive and work, and more importantly it supported that sense of ‘Place’ that is so integral to anyone’s identity and stability. That is why the government is striving to ensure this is re-invigorated, particularly in areas like mine, which have seen their communities disintegrated after years of being overlooked.
There have been some real wins for social housing recently. Last year, housing associations in England built more than 45,600 affordable homes and added an estimated £2.4 billion to the national economy. Notwithstanding the clear economic benefits of a strong social housing network, the residual benefits of providing a strong foundation for some of the most vulnerable in our communities to be able to go out and expand from, goes without saying. Giving people a sense of responsibility and belonging allows all the other aspects of community to flourish. That’s how I went from Social Housing to Westminster and how every little boy like me should also be given that chance.
There is however, still more to do:
A YouGov Survey published last week by the National Housing Federation shows that:
Clearly, these are problems that need resolving.
I am excited by the Prime Minister’s statement that our recovery will involve “Build, Build, Build” – this is key to our future.
It is now incumbent on politicians like me, representing communities like mine, to ensure that social housing is at the heart of our recovery plan and gets the support that’s long overdue to resolve these problems, which I am sure many of my constituents can relate to.
Yes, this does mean building more homes, but it also means looking at innovative ways that we can sustain and improve our current social housing stock. It means ensuring that we have a social housing system that provides a bedrock for our most vulnerable, and re-building those communities that have been decimated after years of being overlooked.
This will be done by taking the revolutionary and reformative zeal that we’ve seen from this Prime Minister, and if necessary, totally re-inventing and re-thinking the way we provide social housing.
We can start immediately by re-profiling existing commitments to social housing and providing additional tenure and timing flexibility in the current grant programmes. We need to add additional flexibilities in the current grant programmes and extend the existing Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme for an additional year to 2022, with the same conditions as the current programme prioritising new social and affordable homes built by housing associations. It could also be made available for bulk-buying homes from developers at a discount to convert to rent, as long as the homes are high quality, the right size, and in the right places.
We should also use the forthcoming Spending Review to double down on our ‘levelling up’ plan, by setting out a long-term investment programme. This will kickstart the building of a new generation of high quality, beautiful and greener affordable homes for people to rent and buy.
The economic impact of the coronavirus will no doubt hit communities in the north and midlands, hardest. Therefore, it is important that funding is targeted to support those in greatest need and we should adopt a place-based approach to renewal in cities, towns, and communities across the country. The communities in my constituency need this renewal and I hope the constituencies with the greatest need will be prioritised.
Not only would this kind of commitment stimulate long-term investment in modern methods of construction, it will also create jobs, boost productivity and skills.
To do this effectively, it means that the government will need to listen, and then act on the views and concerns of those communities who are directly impacted by social housing, many of them being the communities which lent us their vote in December, giving us the opportunity to form the government they deserve.
We are at the crossroads of an exciting opportunity for social housing. For the first time in a long time the government of the day understands the very communities who rely on this vital social service. I am determined to ensure for survivors and battlers like my mum and the millions of others like her, that Tories are no longer afraid to talk about social housing.