Tory Nimbys have handed Labour the housing issue, MPs say

The Conservatives have ceded control of the housing battleground ahead of the next general election, Labour believes, as the party aims to ram through changes from its first day in office if it gains power.

Confidence is growing within Labour circles that it has a more appealing offer to voters when it comes to fixing the housing crisis after Michael Gove set out government plans that experts warned would lead to fewer homes being built.

As i revealed earlier this month, the co-author of the Tories’ 2019 general election manifesto, Robert Colvile, warned that the political concessions made by Rishi Sunak to Tory MPs opposed to mandatory housing targets meant the Government’s approach would lead to an undersupply of new homes.

Mr Gove vowed to strip local councils of their planning powers if they failed to produce sufficient local plans, but the Government’s own National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) states that all local housing targets are only advisory, despite No 10 being committed to delivering 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s.

Labour has seized the opportunity when it comes to housing and has vowed to issue written ministerial statements undoing the Government’s NPPF and committing the party to building 1.5 million homes by the end of the parliament – should it win the election.

Shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook told i that the Conservatives are likely to try and announce fresh housing policies ahead of the election, but insisted the Government is hamstrung by its own MPs.

“The concessions that they made to their backbenchers was the turning point, which opened up a clear dividing line between the two parties,” he said.

“When he announced their plans for the NPPF you knew they were not serious about hitting their housing targets in any meaningful way. They’ve put up smokescreens, such as promising major developments in places like Cambridge but they will take years.”

Sir Keir Starmer placed housing and the creation of several new towns at the heart of his conference speech in Liverpool earlier this year, as Labour sought to steal a march on their rivals when it came to tackling the housing crisis.

Mr Colvile, who runs the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said the two parties’ approaches boils down to “every area will have to build their share of housing, even if it means building on the greenbelt” under Labour, whereas under the Tories the position is “we hope everyone builds their share, but none of it will be on the greenbelt”.

“So they [the Conservatives] are trying to have their cake and eat it,” he added. “Gove is saying we are not Nimbys; we believe fervently in house-building.

“We believe in the right homes in the right places – which is far away from most of our voters. And anything you see will be so gorgeously beautiful and have such wonderful infrastructure around them that all objections will fall away.”

The lack of a compelling housing policy has prompted some Tory MPs to warn that the party could lose a generation of voters unless it is seen to be helping people onto the housing ladder.

But industry figures believe neither parties’ proposals will have a sufficient impact on the housing crisis unless they deal with Nimbyism among their own ranks.

Once industry insider, who refused to be named, told i: “Neither party seems to have understood the need to address the resourcing issues at local authority level or the fact that many of their own rank and file councillors or back benchers campaign actively against housing and development.

“Until political parties tackle that and start making the positive case for housing, they’re likely to be stuck endlessly tweaking policy in the hopes they find a solution.”