The Roundup  – Spending Review Special

When the new Labour government came to power last July, we briefed that housing was right at the top of its agenda. Yes, public services across the country were broken – rail contracts falling apart, prisons overflowing, schools facing financial crisis and social services crumbling – and there were endless calls on the country’s strained finances. Yet, we had been assured that the depth of the housing crisis was fully understood by the government and would be a priority.

In the week before the Chancellor stood to deliver her comprehensive spending review on Wednesday, many of the major commitments on defence, energy and transport were trailed early. Given Rachel Reeves’ dogged commitment to her self-imposed fiscal rules, that meant cuts would have to follow elsewhere. There was an understandable anxiety that, despite commitments to new housing development, the wider ministry – which includes responsibility for local government – would bear the brunt of those.

Thankfully, there’s Angela Rayner.

It is a rare thing for a senior cabinet member to have been brought up in social housing. And a precious gift to have a Deputy Prime Minister who has a deep understanding of the consequences of the housing crisis, having raised her own children as a social tenant. Rayner reportedly held out until Sunday evening before making her department’s settlement with the Treasury, and can take huge credit for the collective sigh of relief we’re breathing now.

Almost everything this country needs to fix our broken housing system is expensive, requires complex legislation or will take so long to deliver that the electorate realistically won’t see the benefits within this parliament.  It is a testament to Rayner’s dogged commitment to her cause and the hard work and careful lobbying of those at the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation (who continue to make the wide and compelling case for housing investment) that the government recognises that without fixing housing we cannot fix health, education, social care, welfare, inequality or even the economy.

So, this week the government doubled down on its commitment to social housing. This is a landmark moment for the sector.  A counterweight to George Osborne’s gutting of housing finances a decade ago.

But understand, there will also be a trade-off for the trust placed in us.

We must now deliver.

We must build new homes. We must lead on regeneration.

For those of us passionate about housing, communities and equality of opportunity, we must seize this rare (and, given the state of world affairs, possibly fleeting) opportunity to prove ourselves capable of making the change we promise happen.

Sleeves up, it’s time to get to work!

Bobbie, Els, Will, Siobhan, Emma and the HB Team.

Spending Review 2025: the digested news

The big news first: 

Reeves has pledged £39bn in funding for the affordable homes programme, to be spent by councils, developers and housing associations.

This is a huge increase on the previous government commitment, and comes with it a demand for rapid house building so the government can meet its target for 1.5 million new homes over the course of this parliament.

That target is still a stretch, but it’s a much more achievable one now that the funding has come with it.

The Chancellor also confirmed a 10-year rent settlement with the sector, allowing social landlords to raise rents by the Consumer Price Index inflation rate plus 1 percentage point each year over the decade. This was a crucial, long-standing demand made by sector representatives; without it, there would be insufficient stability to encourage housing associations to take risks on development, particularly while still facing the high and growing costs of meeting new building safety regulations and addressing disrepair.

The investment is so large that it was described by Mairi MacRae, Shelter’s director of campaigns and policy, as a “watershed moment in tackling the housing emergency”.

She noted that it was an opportunity to reverse decades of neglect of housing, and social housing in particular, and we couldn’t agree more. London Councils, which represents the authorities arguably bearing the brunt of the housing crisis, had previously said the rent settlement was urgently needed to ensure that the capital’s affordable housing market could be sustained at all. It seems there is a listening ear in government.

Meanwhile, the spending review also contained a £4.8bn fund to boost private investment in housebuilding, part of a wider £10bn pledged to encourage innovation and new approaches to development. This shows a level of trust in the sector and its relationship with the wider commercial housing industry that should not be taken for granted; it has not always been this way.

The expertise of our clients is finally being recognised and acted on, and we couldn’t be happier.

Affordability: 

The government used the Chancellor’s speech to confirm that it will introduce a permanent mortgage guarantee scheme to support buyers who have small deposits from July, to replace the existing scheme, which comes to an end later this month. This will be welcomed by aspirant first-time buyers, but the long-term impact of David Cameron’s Help to Buy – the first of these schemes – was simply to raise house prices for all. Is this the best use of government funding? Perhaps now isn’t the time to be churlish.

Homelessness: 

Elsewhere on housing, there was a pledge of more than £1bn extra to tackle homelessness – a fast-rising problem and obviously the cause of huge additional costs at the sharp end of the housing crisis given the cost of providing emergency housing, which is now at risk of bankrupting many local authorities. This figure includes £950m for councils to buy temporary accommodation, helping to end the reliance they currently have on private landlords, many of whom are leaving the market or choosing to let their properties through agents working with higher-paying projects such as the Home Office migrant rehousing scheme.

Talking of migration, the government’s commitment to rehousing all those people still facing terrible conditions in migrant hotels into secure, suitable accommodation is a very welcome pledge.

Finally, an under-reported promise on homelessness came at the same time as the spending review. The government will repeal a 200-year-old law which continues to criminalise rough sleeping. Another moment of humanity in an often very technical set of commitments aimed primarily at economic growth.

Making good quality places: 

On Tuesday the Planning Bill passed its third reading in Parliament. Alongside this new legislation, the Treasury used the spending review to confirm its new approach to appraising new projects, which it claims will make it easier to deliver new housing and transport to the regions and improve place-making.

The findings of the Green Book review – a close look at the methodology the Treasury uses to assess the cost and benefit of new infrastructure and development projects – is now published in full. It recommended big changes, including new ‘place-based business cases’ bringing plans for different projects together to show how an area can be improved in full.

This is the government’s answer to the Tory (empty) promises of Levelling Up. There’s also funding to help launch this new way of working, to be allocated to 25 “trailblazer” areas in which funding of up to £20m per place will be spent on local infrastructure both big and small – right down to local playgrounds, new libraries and other accessible spaces. These trailblazers are mostly in the north, including Stockport, Stoke, Leeds, Sefton and Barrow-in-Furness.

If you’re in one of these areas, this is a great opportunity to think about how you can get involved with your area’s bid for cash and benefit from new local funding.

Energy costs:

We know that customers are still struggling with the high cost of energy, and while the government has made major commitments to secure and renewable UK energy sources, the benefits of these investments will take a generation to be felt in our monthly bills. Some reprieve for older tenants as the government has committed to reinstate the Winter Fuel Payment for all pensioners, with those who have an income of over £35,000 expected to refund it through the tax system.

More than £13bn remains in the Warm Homes Plan, to be spent over four years up to 2029-30 to “cut bills, tackle fuel poverty and accelerate to net zero”. More details are expected in October, but much of this fund is expected to be funnelled through the social housing sector to help move social housing stock up to the promised EPC C standard for energy performance. The fund will also be spent on projects including heat pumps, solar panels and battery storage. Those exploring heat networks could also benefit.

Welfare and benefits: 

So, what was missing from Reeves’ speech? Despite discussion about whether it might be removed, we heard nothing on the two-child benefit cap, and nothing acknowledging the likely large rebellion the government is facing over its planned cuts to personal independence payments for people living with disabilities. We know both of these disproportionately impact social tenants, so it was disappointing to see little acknowledgement of the impact they are having.

However, for parents there is some reprieve. Free school meals will now be extended to all children with a parent on universal credit, which means huge savings on weekly family food costs for many of your customers. A rollout of breakfast clubs so they are being provided by all primary schools will also help assist some tenants back into work.

Bits and bobs:

While overall the commitment on housing is very welcome, the wider MHCLG is expected to make 1 per cent efficiency savings over the term of the spending review, which is likely to affect the delivery of local public services. How these cuts are implemented locally will vary, but there is likely to be real impacts in your communities. Protecting those services that your work depends on may require extra local lobbying effort.

The Spending Review has also confirmed plans to increase funding by £4bn for adult social care in 2028-29, compared to 2025-26.

What else happened this month?

We’re hurtling towards the summer recess, but that doesn’t mean things are slowing down for the housing sector. Here’s our digest of the latest developments you need to know about

More on planning

Just before the spending review, the MHCLG set out its latest paper on planning reform. It gave a clear steer on some of the department’s priorities over the next period of development and investment – all the more useful now we know how big the financial commitment to go with that really is.

There’s a huge amount to digest, so have a read of the paper for yourself, but the highlights include:

• Supporting the growth of small and medium-sized developers to work on small sites and infill spaces, which is something that we’ve been shouting about for a long time. It’s great to see the government sees the benefit of working with small, local construction firms, both in terms of bringing investment back into the community and tackling the issues that over-reliance on large firms can bring when planning new schemes. We saw how the large developers’ share prices reacted to the news that the government is investing to build: let’s see some of that business confidence come right back down into our places

• Encouraging large sites to be built with a diversity of tenure and – crucially – a much higher share of affordable housing. We know that when developments have more affordable housing, they are built more quickly, so this is just good news for everyone (especially the more than 1 million households on the social housing waiting list)

• New compulsory purchase order powers for local authorities: this is long overdue, but welcome now that it’s finally here. It’s part of the government’s wider commitment to preventing hold-ups in their big infrastructure plans, but even smaller projects will benefit from this

• New penalties for delays. Will this add extra costs for developing landlords working with construction firms who are constantly balancing risk? Perhaps. And perhaps it’s a price worth paying for action
• Encouraging large, strategic sites to be built with greater tenure diversity, delivering higher shares of affordable housing. Where developments have more affordable housing they get built faster!!!!!!!!

A new national tenant body? 

The Housing Ombudsman released a strongly-worded report, ‘Repairing Trust’, which Richard Blakeway launched with robust comments about the need for urgent improvement in the social housing sector.

In case you haven’t had time to read it yet, here are some of the highlights from the study.

• There has been a 474% increase in complaints regarding substandard living conditions between 2019-20 and 2024-25, with 72% attributed to poor practice
• Despite a record £9bn spent on repairs in 2023-24, £3.4m in compensation was ordered for poor living conditions in 2024-25
• The Ombudsman has urged the establishment of a national tenant body to amplify tenant voices and a comprehensive review of funding practices to address systemic issues
• Recurring issues affecting the whole sector include: temporary fixes instead of permanent repairs; lack of property records (and we know this includes safety records such as electrical testing); missed health needs of tenants; and, a reliance on reactive repairs, rather than a predictive model which helps sustain good housing conditions
• A need for more empathetic communication and transparency with tenants – which is a pause for thought for the whole sector. The report calls for a cultural transformation so that tenants are treated with dignity and respect

You can read the full report here: Housing Ombudsman: Repairing Trust

Temporary accommodation: 

Also on standards, a report by the Shared Health Foundation charity made recommendations for government and the sector to improve the living standards of the large numbers of people living in temporary and emergency accommodation. That includes a record 165,000 children – a rise of 14 per cent in one month earlier this spring. The report found that 74 children had died in TA, with their accommodation a factor in their demise, since 2019. Of those, 58 children did not live to see their first birthday.

The report called for regulation of all housing used for TA to ensure that it is appropriate for children, with assessments including hygiene and maintenance standards, timely repair processes to prevent childhood accidents and safe communal spaces that all residents can use.

Preventing homelessness:

In Scotland, social landlords and charities can apply for the newly launched ‘Upstream Homelessness Prevention Fund’ to help prevent homelessness. The scheme will offer cash funds for individual payments, capped at £1,300 per applicant. The Scottish government has earmarked £1m to spend on the scheme, which is aimed at helping explore new ways to sustain tenancies and prevent recurrent homelessness.

Meanwhile a report on Housing First by the charity Commonweal found that homelessness in England’s countryside has risen by 40 per cent in five years. Only 8 per cent of rural homes are affordable, compared to 17 per cent in urban areas: a huge challenge for the sector as it secures development funding through the Affordable Homes Programme.

New towns:

The New Towns Taskforce, which is considering where to build “up to 12” new places promised by the government, has issued a report citing Milton Keynes and Leeds as the council areas that are best suited to the first new schemes as they launch.

The study used a series of measures to assess the viability of areas, including public acceptance of new development, land availability, proximity to existing local growth hubs, affordability and the potential for an uplift in land value. Using this assessment, a desktop exercise, the study found that these two places had the highest levels of development acceptances at 59% and 58% respectively. If you’re in those local authority areas, start your conversations now.

Sustainability:

The latest report on the Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing found that (across the 1.9 million properties assessed), more than three-quarters already achieve a B and C or better rating on their EPC. This is great news for the sector as it seeks to bring all properties up to that standard.

What we’ve been up to

We’ve been a busy bunch at Hough Bellis this month. If you’ve found it hard to track us down, here’s why. Don’t forget to let us know if there’s an upcoming project you’d like our support on, especially now we’ve finally got the government’s attention  – we’re all ears!

Energy dilemmas

Together with Heat Trust and a range of leasehold groups (including the National Leasehold Campaign, Shared Owners Network and the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership) we’ve been helping to raise the issue of leasehold legislation across government – including asking the important question about who is going to pay to upgrade the nation’s energy infrastructure if freeholders are absent and uninterested.

Meanwhile, Lincolnshire Housing Partnership marked a huge milestone in their retrofitting work by hosting a visit from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Representatives from the Whitehall team checked out local sites and properties, observing the landlord’s innovative decarb work.

Are Asbos back?

We’ve been helping to organise an event for the Housing Quality Network on important issues around anti-social behaviour. We’ve got some brilliant speakers lined up and timely topics to cover. You can find out more about the event and sign up here.

Getting you noticed

We’ve secured some great coverage for housing software specialist Mobysoft in support of their excellent whitepaper, From Data to Decisions, with features on the issues it covers appearing in both Inside Housing and Housing Digital.

BTP Architects’ latest completion, Plas Alltran – a previously at-risk building transformed into a landmark affordable housing scheme – has made it into lots of publications including  LABM and the  Welsh press.

We’ve also been busy securing media opportunities and helping shape Switch2’s response to new energy market regulation, all while supporting their new G10 Smart Metering Hub product launch.

People power

Our MD Bobbie Hough has started working with Petty Pool’s non exec team, supporting their amazing work fostering growth and learning opportunities for young people with learning disabilities and difficulties.

Our client Procure Plus’ Women and Manual Trades (WaMT) programme launched a new initiative with Brookhouse Training, offering a new pathway for ex-military women to become qualified gas engineers in just six months.

A throwaway comment

Before we go, can we help your tenants with green waste? The UK throws away around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste every year, so it’s more important than ever that housing associations encourage their tenants to recycle by composting. Our client Garden Organic is helping to do that at its growing number of compost demonstration sites, where the charity’s ‘master composters’ provide important life skills to communities and help to explain why recycling waste is so important.

Under the Environment Act 2021, upcoming changes in waste legislation will require all councils to collect food waste separately by 31 March 2026, this will impact your tenants who will have to sort this waste separately. Encouraging them to home compost instead is the most environmentally friendly way of dealing with unavoidable food and garden waste. Garden Organic run 13 specialist composting education sites in locations around the UK providing hands-on advice and training for residents, organisations and businesses – and more are planned.

Thanks for reading.

For more updates on all things housing and politics, you can find us on LinkedIn here.