We need a Secretary of State for Housing, in the Cabinet and with their own department

Kia and Simon have two kids, an 11 month baby and four year old; they all share one bedroom in a damp flat.  In Bexley, South London, Norman, Carole and their two grown up children have been living in their car for over a year.  Then there’s Lauren and Ivan, who as a typical couple face an average of six and a half years of saving to get a deposit together for a home.  This rises to 21 years for London couples with children, so you can start a mortgage just in time to see your kids graduate.

These are just a handful of the millions of people suffering as a result of our housing crisis; a crisis that has reached epic proportions and affects pretty much every family in Britain.

That is why Labour must head into the next general election with a pledge to establish a new Cabinet position of Secretary of State for Housing. This commitment would start to show Labour has learned the lessons of the past and is committed to tackling an issue that has such a profound impact on ordinary people’s lives.

Researchers at Shelter have helped to set out the scale of the challenge – if food costs had risen as steeply as house prices over the last 40 years, a chicken would now cost £51.18!  While in the last year alone, average rents shot up by 5% and stand at a silly £811 a month – or £1,270 if you need a place in London.  This is part of the reason why 5 million people are languishing on council house waiting lists.

Also, if like me and 85% of people, you hope to own a home one day – instead of paying off a landlord’s mortgage – then the stats make depressing reading.  Over the last ten years, the number of families privately renting has doubled to 1.2 million (1-in-5), over the same time those who own their home has dropped by 13%.

As for the government’s scheme ‘Help to Buy’, it is little more than a ‘dangerous’ short term bung.  Promoting more reckless mortgage lending will actually make housing even less affordable in the long run, as it does virtually nothing to boost housing supply.  The scheme also highlights the belief among many Conservatives that housing is a consumer asset to be traded on a ladder, rather than a place in a community to put down roots.

Yet despite all the evidence showing we’re in the midst of a housing crisis, you would never have guessed from the latest round of reshuffles.

The housing minister, Mark Prisk, was booted out after just one year, making his replacement Kris Hopkins the eighth holder of the brief in six years.  Since June 2007, three Tories have done the job, following five Labour ministers – including Yvette Cooper and John Healey (answers on a postcard for the other three).  In fact, over this period, the average time a housing minister can expect to stay in one of most critical roles in government is less than a year.

So bad is the average tenure of housing ministers it makes football management look like a stable job.

What is more, Labour’s game of musical chairs continues apace in opposition.  This week Jack Dromey’s replacement Emma Reynolds became the third Labour shadow since 2010 (fourth, if you include John Healey’s post-election stint).

In a move that rubs further salt in the wound, this week Cameron decided to downgrade the housing minister job from Minister of State level to Under-Secretary of State.

The sad reality is, at best the role has become a staging post for ambitious ministers, like Grant Shapps, and at worst a stopping off point on the ministerial merry-go-round.  That’s not to sell short Labour’s post holders (and certainly not to give any praise to Shapps).  However, it’s clear that over the past two decades neither party has given housing anywhere near enough attention.  The time has come to draw a line under this.

Labour should pledge to create a new Cabinet position of Secretary of State for Housing, along with the establishment of a corresponding Department for Housing.

This would be a clear sign of the priority Labour attaches to tackling one of our biggest social policy challenges.  It shouldn’t be an exercise in moving chairs around the Cabinet table, but a significant shift in the machinery of government – ensuring a department is tasked with solving our housing crisis and that the buck stops with a dedicated team of ministers.

The move would also be a clear political dividing line, following the government’s decision to downgrade the role in the DCLG department.

This reform could be outlined in Labour’s 2015 manifesto, wrapped up with a solid plan for delivering one million new homes over the course of the parliament – while also setting out firm commitments to clampdown on rogue landlords and improve security for private renters.

During his conference speech, Ed Miliband made clear that he gets the fact we are in a housing crisis.  His commitment to boosting British house building to 200,000 homes a year and taking action to tackle rogue landlords are more than welcome.  However, details remain hazy and we’ve heard similar promises in the past, like Gordon Brown’s pledge to build 3 million homes by 2020.

As with much that’s good in the world, Wales is already leading the way in this area and the Welsh Government has a Cabinet member for housing and regeneration.  This helped secure a serious funding boost in yesterday’s Welsh budget, as well as a Welsh Housing Bill that sets clear plans to tackle homelessness, improve the private rented sector and boost the supply of new homes.

Ambitious housing policy, that delivers affordable, safe and decent homes for ordinary people, in their own communities, should be right at the top of the Labour Party’s list of priorities.  However, for too long it was allowed to slide down the agenda, as housing policy was left to the vagaries of the market.

A coordinated drive to deliver council housing in particular, would help bring down the housing benefit bill and get skilled tradespeople back to work.  It would also allow families to swap the limbo of social housing waiting lists and unaffordable private renting, for the stability of their own secure home.

So let’s ensure that if Labour win in 2015 there is a Secretary of State tasked with delivering the revolution in housing that’s so badly needed – oh and let’s give them more than a year to do it.