The Week in Housing: the home secretary has ‘lost it’

Good afternoon.

“Lost it” – this was how one cabinet minister described home secretary Suella Braverman this week after an article accusing the police of bias was considered an embarrassment to the prime minister.

What didn’t appear to embarrass Rishi Sunak was Ms Braverman’s earlier announcement to restrict the use of tents for people experiencing homelessness, after arguing that some people see it as a “lifestyle choice”.?

The sector?pushed back on the “punitive” plans , which would be unreasonable at any time, never mind during the largest quarterly increase in people forced to sleep rough in London since the pandemic .

I just can not imagine considering an idea like this at the same time as asking taxpayers to pick up the tab for the cost of keeping my own house warm.

Inside Housing launched a new monthly media monitor this month, which you can read here if you missed it.

The monitor provides a rundown of what the media is saying about social housing. Last week, Peter Apps pointed out that some of The Telegraph’s reporting reveals a contradictory editorial line on housebuilding.

On the type of people who live in social housing, however, one of the newspaper’s regular columnists was in a particularly inflammatory mood.?Under?an article on Monday that reported how a former Hamas member had been given a council home, Allison Pearson asked: “Is there a council house in London NOT lived in by a Hamas leader?”

One of the more measured responses underneath the post on X (formerly Twitter) pointed out that “many racists are asking this question”.?It did make me wonder if Ms Pearson and the home secretary would both need their own tents if landlords started allocating housing based on the extremity of a person’s political views.

Ms Braverman’s plans thankfully didn’t make it into the King’s Speech, which would have been a hard sell coming from a monarch wearing a crown. But he did almost announce the end of the “feudal” leasehold system.

The speech, written by ministers and delivered by King Charles on Tuesday, included commitments to leasehold and private rented sector reform, which were welcomed, but the sector urged the government to include support for new and existing social housing in the Autumn Statement.

Senior sector figures?described the King’s Speech as “desperately disappointing” and a “missed opportunity” over the lack of commitment to new affordable homes.

At the same time,?legal experts warned that while some of the changes in the leasehold bill are positive, there is a risk that the changes subject to consultation will never see the light of day.

Following the King’s Speech, the government launched a consultation on ground rent reform that includes capping the charge at a peppercorn rate for existing leaseholders.

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