Is Burnham’s plan for a housing revolution anything more than a pipedream? | John Harris

Nearly 2 million children are housed in dire conditions, anxious families are living out of carrier bags. There’s little sign of the hope our PM promised Two days after the Christmas of 2024, Andy Burnham put up a post on X that linked to a piece about housing in the Guardian. Th

Nearly 2 million children are housed in dire conditions, anxious families are living out of carrier bags. There’s little sign of the hope our PM promised Two days after the Christmas of 2024, Andy Burnham put up a post on X that linked to a piece about housing in the Guardian. The then mayor of Greater Manchester, who was beginning to find his voice as a frank critic of Keir Starmer’s new government, did not mess about: “The Government should make building hundreds of thousands of council homes its defining purpose,” he said.

“No other policy, achievable within a parliament, would have greater social and economic benefits.” In his first Labour conference speech as party leader and prime minister, Burnham reprised much the same argument, promising “the biggest council housebuilding programme since the postwar era”. But by that point, he had also served notice that his commitment to a thoroughgoing council house revival might not be quite as cast iron as it seemed. The previous month, having insisted that all of the £39bn Rachel Reeves had promised to spend on the Starmer government’s Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) until 2036 should go on homes for social rent, he made something of a brazen U-turn , announcing that the allocation of the first £10bn would reflect the existing social homes target of 60%.

But this was leavened with another bit of old-time Labour religion : “Councils built this country out of a housing crisis once before. Backed properly, and trusted to get on with it, they will do it again.” John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...