The Week in Housing: Labour exempts certain groups from local connection test, and new AHP not expected until spring 2025

Good afternoon.

Inside Housing spent much of the week hobnobbing around Liverpool with Labour apparatchiks at the party’s conference, which was big on good vibes and ideas, but short on details and spending commitments.

Angela Rayner kicked things off with news that there will be a new cladding remediation plan in the autumn.

The housing secretary said: “It is completely unacceptable that we have thousands of buildings still wrapped in unsafe cladding seven years after Grenfell.

“And that’s why we will bring forward a new remediation action plan this autumn to speed up the process and we’ll pursue those responsible – without fear or favour.”

The details of this plan are yet to be published.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer?revealed his intention to exempt veterans, young care leavers and victims of domestic abuse from the local connection test.?He also confirmed the introduction of a duty of candour law to parliament before April next year.

The Hillsborough Law will force public bodies to co-operate with investigations into major disasters, and will be in progress before April 2025. Officials or organisations that mislead or obstruct investigations could potentially face criminal sanctions.

Sir Keir said: “The families and survivors of the Grenfell Tower, whose dignity has held up over the last seven years, has held up a mirror to Britain.”

During the conference it was confirmed there will be a third and rebranded wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, as well as a new local authority retrofit scheme.

Inside Housing has also learned that there will be no new details on the government’s next five-year Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) until spring 2025. However, sources suggested that some money might be pumped into the last year of the current AHP by the chancellor next month ahead of the Spring Spending Review next year.

Away from the party rhetoric in the main room, the fringe events offered a chance for the sector to reiterate key asks and express concerns to the new government.

One Labour MP told attendees to “keep pushing” the government on the 90,000-home annual social rent target.

A Northern metro mayor called for a ‘Grenfell law’ to enshrine the right to housing and for the return of mandatory council representation on housing association boards.

The former chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee?said grant could be switched from shared ownership to social rent and that he is “sceptical” about the future of the product as a part of the government’s affordable housing plans.

You can read our full run-down from the Labour Party Conference here.

In other news, the government has issued a call for evidence on ‘brownfield passports’, which aim to speed up planning approvals for urban sites such as car parks.

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