Sir James Cleverly is the recently appointed Conservative shadow housing secretary. So what he says in response to the government’s housing policy statements matters a lot. Labour are showing welcome courage and maturity, by elevating new home building much higher up in their policy priorities. Much higher than any previous government. Evidence of the sincerity of the response from other political leaders in other parties of the merits of this shift in policy priorities matters, a lot too. The reaction of Sir James, as Conservative Party housing spokesman is particularly informative. . The calibre of his response will also set the tone for other opposition parties, if they follow his lead. Is his response thoughtful, measured and constructive. Or is it petty point scoring, divisive and phoney? Because, let us not forget, several decades of housing policy failure are due to one cause above all others: knee-jerk point scoring. Put bluntly, creating intentional political confrontation when instead we need political cooperation. Otherwise we will simply perpetuate housing stasis. Sir James has fired the first shot in this new debate. On which path will it set the political the framework for the next decade of housing delivery? Let’s see.
In The Times, (18 September 2025) Chris Smyth, their Whitehall Editor has a revealing story. Headed Progress on house building is unacceptable, admits minister. Smyth says Steve Reed, Labour’s newly appointed housing secretary has criticised. ‘unacceptable’ progress on home building as official figures show a fall in planning applications. The new Minister has pledged to do more to accelerate building. Chris Smyth sensibly asks if the government is doing enough to build 1.5 million new homes during the current parliamentary term. Although it is not the central question, ( despite government and media fixation with house targets). He also reminds us that planning reform is one of the Prime Minister’s first objectives now Labour are in power. Which is, thank the Lord, spot on. And long overdue. But if Starmer fails here, his reputation will take another hit. So are the Conservatives going to cooperate and help the government solve the housing problem? Doing so will be a measure of their integrity and national duty. Because they too cannot solve the problem on their own, in one parliamentary term. Or will Cleverly use the unavoidable defects of Labour’s housing policy failure to come, as weapons to undermine the government, and in the process repeat once again another decade of housing policy failure?
In the piece by Chris Smyth there is the following important quotation from Sir James Cleverly
“Labour are failing people who need homes. They are killing the market with taxes, over regulation and economic incompetence. They’ve promised to ‘build, build, build’ but their flagship planning reforms clearly aren’t working”.
Taken at face value, Sir James’ assertion is correct. Regardless of however many times Labour minsters say they will deliver 1.5million new homes in this parliamentary term they will not. It is unfortunate but no political party has this prize in their gift for several reasons. What is more, he is also right to a limited degree to warn that sentiment is taking a hit. Because some of the new changes introduced by the this government will actually hold back new supply through muddled thinking by the government. Many of their ministers are and remain, viewed through the sensitivity of market sentiment, remarkable naive. Which is another reason why we need cross-party inputs, without the shackles of phoney ideologies and childish party divisions. Reflect on how unhelpful it is that the government plan to compel owners of building land to sell it at current use value, not open market value. This step will fuel a tsunami of legitimate anger. Advocating this infantile policy guarantees powerful, justified and well funded opposition from a lobby group of vested interests, most of whom are veterans of undermining planning and house building policies over many decades.
Despite these criticisms, Labour are trying to move forward with new planning policies. Unfortunately and despite initial hopes in some quarters of better, the above quotation from Cleverly is, once again plain abdication of policy leadership disguised as legitimate opposition by the official Opposition. It is not. Labour’s policies are far from perfect. But they are trying. The Conservatives, since they came to power in 2010 have broken the housing market through their own hang-ups and right now have no new policies to try again. These omissions and oversights are worrying. (If you disagree, review three decades-start in the eighties- of local and structure plans in Wokingham Borough or in Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough. Classic examples of spatial policy failure in a sea of prosperity). They say repeating failure is a sign of madness.
So it would be so much better, if instead Cleverly had said the other day why his party has doubts about some of the government’s new ideas and how they want to explore alternative ways forward in order to mend the broken system. Hopefully, as he is new in the job, and planning/housing policy is a minefield for novices, these words of his can be taken as genuine concerns about current government intentions. And hopefully these concerns will be backed up in the weeks and months ahead with a more measured, thought through set of policy recommendations.
Ian Campbell
20 September 2025
