Andy Burnham said delivering new social housing would stop children being forced to live in mouldy and damp homes with soaring levels of kids living in temporary accommodation
Keir Starmer should introduce a target to build at least half a million new social homes by the end of the decade, Andy Burnham has suggested.
The Greater Manchester Mayor said if every citizen in the country had a good home it would have massive impacts on the economy and health. Mr Burnham said it would also stop children being forced to live in mouldy and damp homes with soaring levels of kids living in temporary accommodation.
The Labour government has an overall target to build 1.5million new homes by the end of the Parliament – but no specific target on social homes. The housing charity Shelter has estimated at least 90,000 new social homes a year are needed over the next decade to clear massive backlogs in waiting lists.
Speaking at an event hosted by the Resolution Foundation, the ex-Labour Cabinet minister Mr Burnham said new social homes will help “end the housing crisis”.
He told the event on Tuesday: “Make the top target for housing in this country a new target for social homes within this Parliament. I would say at least half a million and almost the 1.5million becomes more of an ambition behind it.”
He added: “Those are the homes that end the housing crisis. Those are the homes that remove the temporary accomodation bill off the backs of our councils and therefore the public investment has a multiplier effect of the benefits it brings. This spending review could do that – that would be a massive thing.
“You can’t do everything all at once can you – we all accept the need for new hospitals. But if this government was to make that its defining mission that actually plays through quite quickly into people living in newer homes with lower bills because they are more likely to be net zero or low carbon and they get a real uplift in living standards.
“The health benefits of living in a good home and not the damp and mould that kids have to put up with in temporary accommodation.”
With Greater Manchester alone facing a bill of £75million for temporary accomodation he said Chancellor Rachel Reeves should prioritise the issue at the spending review in June.
Mr Burnham went on: “You can’t have anything in life without a good home. You can’t have good health, your kids don’t get a good education if you do not have the foundations of a good home behind you. If every citizen in this country had a good home the bill for public spending on crisis spending in various ways would be so much lower than it currently is.”
He added: “We need to move housing from number six on the agenda in a meeting to number one. That’s what it means – government needs to move it right up the batting order to number. Sort out people’s housing first and then you sort out a lot of things for them. If this spending review could bring about that culture change in Whitehall it will have achieved something very profound.”
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