Prime Minister Andy Burnham has reinforced his desire to put a major council homebuilding programme at the centre of his hoped-for cuts in welfare bills, and help fund other long-term financial commitments made by his new administration.
Setting out how he hoped to use council housebuilding to divert money away from private landlords to local authority coffers, he explained it was “the fair and sustainable way to bring the welfare bill down, to meet our fiscal rules, and to honour our commitments on defence to our international partners.”
He did not give any detail in terms of predicted savings on welfare, or how the council building programme would be funded, as he made the comments outside number 10, but he asserted: “We will help people to live well, building a more preventative state, investing in people’s success, rather than paying for failure.”
Before being officially confirmed as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham re-confirmed his previously stated aim of embarking on the “biggest programme of council house building since the post-war period,” as a central plank of his administration’s overall goals.
Following his win in the Makerfield byelection, Burnham vowed to pursue a “place first, not party first” strategy, within a devolution-oriented ‘Manchesterism’ agenda moving away from an “overcentralised” picture which was focused on central control from London. He said the state was “insufficiently accountable and outsourced” currently.
With the housing crisis having a “ruinous effect on the public finances,” Burnham said that his Government would “use vacant public land to reduce costs,” and promote higher density residential development in towns. He said the proposed ‘No. 10 North’ Government headquarters would “support all places to turn around their town centres,” while “protecting green spaces.”
The focus on building social housing would represent “a decisive shift to a national housing-first philosophy” along the lines of the model used in Finland. He said the UK “had to finally put having a good home at the top of its priority list.”