ARCH Chair, Cllr Kim Caddy and Chief Executive John Bibby have
been invited to meet the new Housing Minister Esther McVey MP.
Following her appointment to replace Kit Malthouse as Housing
Minister in Boris Johnson's new government ARCH and the National
Federation of ALMOs (NFA) wrote a joint letter to the new Housing Minister Esther McVey to
welcome her into post and to seek an early meeting with her.
In our letter to the new Minister we made the case for council
housing highlighting the fact that the Government's 2017 Housing White Paper recognised that
there is a need to fix the broken housing market and drawing
attention to the work that ARCH and the NFA and our members have
been doing to gear up the sector to deliver a new generation of
high-quality council housing as a key part of a mixed-tenure
market.
The Government has previously acknowledged that if it is to
reach its target of delivering 300,000 new homes each year,
investment in council housing and social housing at genuine social
rent is essential, not only to meet that annual target but to
address the needs of those that the housing market is currently
unable to meet.
We believe this is fundamentally important to solving the
housing crisis and addressing the homelessness crisis; as well as
ensuring people on low incomes have security to live and work where
they can build a better life for themselves and their families and
contribute to the post Brexit economy.
We highlighted to the new Minister how ARCH and NFA members have
been gearing up to support the government in solving the housing
crisis following a number of very welcome recent government policy
announcements, including the longer-term rent deal from 2020, the
abolition of the HRA borrowing cap and the removal of the High
Value Asset Levy. This has enabled them to start to develop the
long-term plans which are so needed within the wider housing
sector.
We also said we were pleased to see the Government's commitment
in the 2018 Social Housing Green Paper to tackle
the stigmatisation of social housing and social housing
tenants.
The tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017 has left a long shadow
and there are still many outstanding issues to be tackled if we are
to achieve the goal of social housing we can all be proud of. The
Government consulted widely with the sector and tenants on the
Social Housing Green paper, and we said we were looking forward to
publication of the Government's response to the consultation and
action plan expected later this
month.
Given the importance for our members of both the outcomes of the
Social Housing Green Paper and the need to build more homes, we
asked to meet with the Minister to discuss how ARCH and the NFA may
best be of practical support in delivering the Government's housing
objectives.
We are pleased to announce that the Minister has responded to
our letter and has invited ARCH Chair Councillor Kim Caddy and ARCH
Chief Executive John Bibby, together with the NFA Chair and
Managing Director to meet with her and a date for the meeting is
currently being arranged.
We will update member councils on the outcome of the discussions
with the Minister.