Standing outside Downing Street, hours after visiting a homeless shelter, Andy Burnham kickstarted his premiership with an impassioned pledge to end rough sleeping and launch “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period.”
It is the promise that could come to define his time in Downing Street. But some of the evidence suggests it could fail – or worse, backfire.
Burnham favours redirecting Sir Keir Starmer’s entire £39bn Social and Affordable Housing Programme (SAHP) into social rent: the tenure most affordable to tenants and the most expensive to build, according to reports from the campaign trail.
Whitehall departments are expected to be told to sell land at a discount for new developments. His post-war declaration is being taken at “face value” by councils. They now expect a greater chunk of the affordable housing budget after being “bottom of the pile” when it comes to accessing funding from Homes England, the Government’s main housing agency.
Homes England’s programme is currently on hold while he decides how to proceed, and his Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, has just given his ambition a reality check. “There’s a huge gulf between post-war and where we are today,” she told BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday when questioned about council housing. “The bar is really low.”
