The Government’s approach to housing is less evidence-based, more ideologically-driven dogma

London in housing crisis! That’s the view of 76% of Londoners according to a report out last week from the Chartered Institute of Housing. The findings make for grim, yet unsurprising reading, suggesting there is now little doubt surrounding the depth of public concern about the capital’s housing crisis – rocketing prices and a lack of affordable supply have made housing the number one issue for many Londoners.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the average London home will now set you back over half a million pounds. For many, owning a home is becoming little more than a dream, with tens of thousands now opting to leave the capital instead of pay the London housing premium.

Despite widespread acceptance that housing is in crisis the Mayor of London Boris Johnson has consistently under delivered, presiding over a boom in safe deposit box homes for overseas investors while at the same time letting his affordable house building targets slip.

The perverse imbalance of housing delivery in London was starkly highlighted last week by one property consultancy, which found over 54,000 homes in the pipeline worth over a million pounds – further evidence that London’s housing market is failing to deliver the homes that Londoners need.

At the other end of the scale, only 8,700 affordable homes were built across the entire capital last year. This despite the Mayor of London’s own evidence base showing that 25,624 new affordable homes, are needed each year to contribute to the 49,000 new homes required to meet the backlog and stabilise London’s housing market.

As any economist would point out, the London housing crisis isn’t just about lack of supply it’s about demand. On this point London’s policy chiefs have a decision to make. Do we keep Boris Johnson’s approach of limitless building of million plus homes for overseas speculators – London’s housing market remains a very attractive investment – or do we prioritise building homes for people to actually live in? For me the answer is simple: the latter.

As a consequence of the current approach to housing, we have seen huge hardship caused for many on low and (increasingly) middle income in London.

Hundreds of thousands of London families now remain for years on waiting lists for social housing while the Housing Benefit bill continues to rise in the capital as more and more public money goes to subsidising London’s over-priced and under-regulated private rented sector.

Yet policies like the Government’s reinvigorated Right to Buy scheme are making things worse. A new report I launched last week found that over the next decade London councils will sell 6,000 more council homes under Right to Buy than they will build – in outer London it is expected that two homes will be sold for every new home that is completed. That’s why it is particularly mindboggling that senior Government ministers are now floating the idea of broadening out Right to Buy to include Housing Associations – a policy which would see thousands more in demand social rent homes sold off. Less evidence-based policy and more ideologically-driven dogmatism.

But Right to Buy in itself isn’t the sole problem, it’s that councils haven’t also been given the financial powers to build the necessary number of new homes. 30% of revenue from Right to Buy sale for example is hoovered up by the Treasury leaving councils with only 43% to reinvest in new housing after legal and administrative fees are paid. This is a nice short-term money-spinner for the Treasury, but a disaster for the local authorities and people who need those homes. The government must also lift the arbitrary cap on councils borrowing to invest in housing.

All of these are issues which occupied the minds of the hundreds of people attending Saturday’s March for Homes. The march bought together many different viewpoints all united by the common understanding that something needs to change. Whilst the answers to London’s housing crisis are broad and widely debated, it’s clear the overwhelming majority of Londoners now believe we need to address the challenge sooner rather than later. Boris Johnson’s approach of burying his head in the sand just won’t cut it anymore.

Tom Copley is a Labour Londonwide Assembly member, and Labour’s London Assembly Housing spokesperson