There’s only one story in town today…!

During our last newsletter I wrote an ode to Angela Rayner as we welcomed the biggest injection of funding in social homes for a generation and a raft of progressive policy changes.

Now, she has stood down as Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister following an investigation into the amount of Stamp Duty she has paid on a home in Brighton.

For those of us embracing a period of stability within housing policy, this will come as a blow. But them’s the breaks.

In truth there was no other option for Rayner after ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus said she had broken the ministerial code.

So, what does this all mean for Keir Starmer’s government?

Another Housing Minister? Yep!

We already know that Steve Reed MP has been appointed as Rayner’s replacement as part of a wider cabinet reshuffle. The Streatham and Croydon North MP takes the role following a stint as Environment Secretary.

A local government heavyweight (former leader of Lambeth Council), Reed held the shadow housing brief for around 18 months from April 2020, and was said to be gutted to leave the post at the time.

Will the changes at the top of government clear a pathway to more right-leaning policies with the soft left’s biggest power broker sidelined? The appointment of Shabana Mahmood to the Home Secretary role suggests so.

There’s also the prospect of a messy Deputy Leadership election. There was some talk that Starmer might scrap the role altogether. Corbyn was planning that after all. David Lammy has stepped into that post for now.

Whatever happens next, any thought that housing might drift from the top of the political and news agenda has been quashed.

With party conference season around the corner, the budget just two months away and housing providers still digesting a raft of policy changes and consultation responses as we head into the Autumn, there’s plenty to think about as we start our new term.

We must not forget that for our residents and communities, these are difficult times.

Concerns around migration have spilled over into action on our streets. Plenty of residents may be feeling anxious about the wave of anti-immigration sentiment and tone of statements from politicians.

This is a time when the sector must stay true to its values. We have a role in helping people to feel safe where they live. It’s a role we are proud to play.

Across the sector, we do great work bringing communities together and building and creating neighbourhoods where people thrive.

It feels like an important time to be sharing those stories.

As always, you can read on for a round-up of the latest politics and policy news, a recap on the state of the sector as we get back to our desks after the summer and a summary of everything we’ve already achieved this term.

Welcome back. Let’s get to work!

Bobbie, Els, Will, Liv, Siobhan, Emma and the Hough Bellis team

WESTMINSTER DIGEST

Diary dates

The date has been confirmed for the Budget.

Block out your diaries for Wednesday 26 November, when Rachel Reeves – already under pressure due to a difficult few weeks on the bond markets – is expected to raise taxes to help fill the growing black hole in the government’s finances.

Property taxes are expected to be on the menu. Treasury bods are tossing up a range of options, including changes to stamp duty and a possible housing wealth tax to replace council tax.

These are huge changes that are unlikely to be implemented in the short term, but may change attitudes towards property as a financial investment. Private landlords are expecting to be hit with a national insurance charge on their rental income, which combined with the provisions contained in the Renters Rights Bill could see more choose to sell up and leave the market. The Budget should come with more detail about the affordable homes programme – and potentially confirmation of where England’s new towns will be developed.

Trouble at the top – Labour reset – take two

As mentioned already, we’re now in the middle of a major reshuffle following Angela Rayner’s resignation. As we write:

• Pat McFadden has been appointed Work and Pensions Secretary
• Shabana Mahmood is now Home Secretary
• David Lammy has been appointed as the new Deputy Prime Minister, in addition to Justice Secretary
• Yvette Cooper is Foreign Secretary
• Lisa Nandy will remain Culture Secretary
• Rachel Reeves remains Chancellor

Early indications are that the foundations are being laid to drive through the policy agenda that the left of the Labour party have not been willing to stomach.

Of course, we’ll keep you posted as we hear more and what that might mean for junior ministers.

Just in case that’s not enough, you may remember that over the summer, homelessness ministerRushanara Ali also failed to survive the revelation that, as a private landlord herself, she had evicted tenants only to relist her property as available with a monthly rental of £700 more.

Within the rules, until this government changes them, but as the end of private tenancy is now a leading cause of homelessness, it never felt like her role was sustainable. She resigned over the affair, but the role – a crucial post given that a child in every British classroom is growing up in temporary accommodation – is yet to be filled. Names circulating as potential replacements include Jo Platt, Sarah Owen and Cat Smith – but that all might change now. We’ll keep you updated on whatever we hear.

Labour reset – take one (in case you missed it)  

Keir Starmer’s first attempt at a September reshuffle came earlier in the week. This one was less about fireworks and more about engineering.

With Reform UK riding high in the polls and Labour drifting, that particular shake-up of Downing Street was framed as a “reset” from phase one: laying foundations, to phase two: delivery.

We already know that Darren Jones is moving from the Treasury to become chief secretary to the prime minister, an enforcer for Starmer, and widely seen as a move which has weakened Reeves’ grip on the Treasury. Think Gordon Brown’s discipline with Tony Blair’s political management.

But it’s the economy where the real drama lies. Baroness Minouche Shafik, a heavyweight from the Bank of England and Columbia University, is parachuted in as chief economic adviser to No.10. That creates an awkward dual track alongside Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who retains formal control of the Treasury but suddenly finds another economic brain whispering directly into the PM’s ear.

The opposition are already spinning this as a sign that Starmer doesn’t fully trust his Chancellor – can he really make the call to lose his Chancellor and Deputy PM in the same week?

More interesting for housing is the arrival of James Murray into the Treasury role Jones left open. He is a former housing campaigner, a stalwart of north London labour politics and the former London deputy mayor for housing. He’s an advocate of pragmatic solutions to the housing crisis. Housing is a passion project for him, so while his brief will be much broader while working with Reeves, he’s got the interest and the understanding that bodes well for housing’s role in the big push for growth.

Inside Number 11, former Resolution Foundation thinktanker Torsten Bell has been moved into Reeves’ team as she prepares her November budget. A few months ago, that would have suggested that radical tax rises to support stronger public services and a better standard of living for poorer households might have been in the offing.

But despite his campaigning background, Bell has proven remarkably on-message since his election in last year’s general election and appointment onto the government benches. When disability benefit cuts were announced he gave a series of interviews which appeared to cut across the policies he had argued for as a lobbyist. Now he’s climbing through the ranks rapidly, will he advocate for change or swallow the government line?

In the comms team – which, let’s be frank, is desperate for an injection of skill – Tim Allan, the founder of Portland Communications and a big New Labour figure – replaces James Lyons. Starmer clearly realises that something has to change. All this comes as Nin Pandit, Starmer’s principal private secretary, departs, a sign the PM is re-wiring the machine at the top.

Starmer knows delivery is slipping, the polls are sliding, and the next few months with the autumn Budget front and centre, are make-or-break. This reshuffle is his attempt to put the right cogs in the machine. Whether the machine itself is fit for purpose remains an open question.

Where is the opposition? 

Over to the Conservatives. Remember them?

Not content with changing housing ministers 412 times while in power – and now wanting to be overshadowed by Labour’s own change – they’ve decided to continue the trend in opposition.

Kevin Hollinrake (a name that will win you a pub quiz in 2030) is replaced by someone you will have heard of: James Cleverly.

Cleverly’s appointment might mark a slight shift in Tory focus on housing. Hollinrake, who moves to become party chairman, had promised a citizen-led approach to housing policy and said the party needed to “rewire and reboot” its housing offer to voters. Cleverly has had a more brusque approach to the issue. When he was Home Secretary last year, a group of charities and organisations, including Crisis and the National Housing Federation, had to write to urge him to reconsider imprisoning and fining rough sleepers. But he’s got a big appetite for housing growth, apparently with the motto “build, build, build” (catchy).

Cleverly has appointed one new member to the shadow team: Gareth Bacon, MP for Orpington and an opponent of so-called “grey belt” development on designated green belt land, a key feature of the Labour government’s development plans.

Meanwhile, though Reform continues to surge in the polls and has a tight grip on the national political narrative, the party so far has little interest in the housing crisis as an issue it might be faced with solving in its local council areas or in the government it wants to form.

Under deputy leader Richard Tice, Reform still has no official housing spokesperson, and has not fleshed out its housing policy beyond positioning itself as broadly pro-landlord and anti-regulation.

Banking on Rees

In housing specifically, Homes England has a new face at the top. Former prison and probation service boss Amy Rees, a career civil servant, is taking over as chief executive, which includes overseeing the launch of the National Housing Bank, which aims to draw in £53bn of private investment into the sector.

She joins from the role of interim permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, where she led the department’s spending review negotiations – so is in a good position to lock down promised funding.

She will replace interim chief executive Eamonn Boylan, who is now working on the design of the giant Affordable Homes Programme.

THE BIG RECAP

As we move into autumn and party conference season – and your own period of budget setting too – we thought you might appreciate a round-up of where we are with government commitments right now. Here’s a very quick digest of the government’s policies and promises to make sure you’ve got everything covered.

Development:

• £39bn pledged for the Affordable Homes Programme, aimed at delivering 1.5m new homes this parliament – but still no detail on how this will be administered and divided up yet. That’s expected from Homes England this autumn.
• 10-year rent deal: social landlords can raise rents by CPI + 1% annually, giving stability for development.
• £4.8bn fund to boost private investment in housebuilding; part of £10bn for Homes England to back innovation.

Home ownership:

• Permanent mortgage guarantee scheme to help buyers with small deposits, replacing the expiring version, but critics warn this could inflate house prices in the same way Help to Buy failed on affordability.

Renting:

• The Renters’ Rights Bill is nearing its final stages, with the House of Commons to consider amendments made by the House of Lords in September 2025, potentially leading to Royal Assent and becoming law by mid-September 2025. Key updates include the abolition of no-fault evictions, the conversion of all fixed-term tenancies to rolling periodic tenancies, the introduction of a new Decent Homes Standard for the private rented sector, the creation of a private rented sector database and Ombudsman, and bans on rent bidding wars and discrimination against benefit recipients.
• In response to frozen Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates and rising rents, English councils spent over £31m in 2024–25 on incentive payments to private landlords – covering 10,792 one-off payments, sometimes exceeding £10,000 each. London councils saw a 54% increase since 2018.

Welfare and the cost of living:

• No movement on the two-child benefit cap, and significant disability benefit reforms, which have not been watered down again despite political pressure.
• Winter Fuel Payment restored for all pensioners; those earning £35k+ will repay via tax.
• £13bn Warm Homes Plan to upgrade housing stock to EPC C, fund heat pumps, solar panels and storage.

Planning and place:

• The Planning Bill is now at Lords committee stage; the Treasury promises faster delivery of housing and transport projects.
• New ‘place-based business cases’ for infrastructure planning.
• 25 “trailblazer” areas (mostly northern towns/cities) to receive up to £20m each for local projects.
• New towns: after more than 100 applications were lodged, an announcement is expected later this year on where new places will be created.

Homelessness:

• £1bn+ pledged to tackle homelessness, including £950m for councils to buy temporary accommodation.
• Commitment to rehouse people in migrant hotels into secure housing, with pressure to speed up relocation gathering pace due to community protests. The PM’s language on migrant support is becoming harder.
• Government to repeal 200-year-old law criminalising rough sleeping.

I EVOLVE BUT I DON’T….. DEVOLVE
(One for the Alan Partridge fans there). He’s not talking about it much, but the big political story of the next chapter of Starmer’s government will be devolution.

With development targets set to be spread out nationally, there’s much discussion in town hall corridors about the role of regions in meeting the government’s building targets and in shaping future placemaking projects. After 20 years in the shadows, regeneration is back in fashion. Greater Manchester and the West Midlands Combined Authority are demonstrating how the use of local powers could be instrumental in meeting housing’s aims for creating new, safe and supportive communities.

Next week, a group of small cities – from Oxford and Swindon to Exeter – are set to lobby government on the case for greater devolved power and funding, and more control over how their areas are organised, including extending their local development boundaries, which hamper growth.

Meanwhile a new report from the charity Re:State made a case for Homes England to be abolished entirely, with its functions and responsibilities devolved to mayoral strategic authorities (which are of course set to grow in number) in every area possible – a “devolve by default” approach. That would include local responsibility for delivery of the affordable homes programme.

The paper is authored by some of the most senior names in local government, who are lobbying hard for a genuine transfer of power from the centre. It also suggests passing down responsibility for ensuring quality and sustainability of new homes, which may be a less convincing argument given the national impact of issues such as poor quality and the damp and mould crisis.

PARTY CONFERENCE SEASON

Party conference season is upon us again! A chance to hear from and influence those who will set the policy agenda for the next year.

We’re delighted to be supporting the Chartered Institute of Housing in the build-up to this year’s Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

Labour has put housing at the heart of its approach to government. Over the past year, the Chartered Institute of Housing has been working collaboratively with government to drive the changes and spending commitments that have laid the foundations for a new era of social housing.

Now, we must turn that ambition into action. Join us as we discuss how the government’s housing ambitions can help deliver a decade of national renewal.

Monday 29 September 1.15pm – 2.45pm

Plus Dane Housing 2nd Floor, Atlantic Pavilion, Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool L3 4AE

(This event is located just a few meters outside of the secure zone on the Albert Dock. Those without passes to the main conference will be able to attend)

You’ll hear from:

• Florence Eshalomi MP, Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee (invited)
• Baroness Taylor, Under-secretary of State – Lords Minister for Housing and Local Government (invited)
• Amanda Hack MP
• Paul Dennett, Mayor of Salford and Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester (invited)
• Francesca Albanese, Executive Director of Policy & Social Change, Crisis
• Ian Reed, Chief Executive, Plus Dane Housing
• Gavin Smart, Chief Executive, Chartered Institute of Housing (Chair)

OTHER SUMMER NEWS
Private interests: A quarter of private developers are considering investing in a for-profit social housing provider, according to a report by law firm Winckworth Sherwood. It polled 86 executives representing registered providers, developers, financiers and local authorities, and three-in-five said they had already entered a for-profit strategic partnership. Interestingly, this came as Notting Hill Genesis decided to put its £1bn private rented sector business up for sale, indicating a lot of movement in the sector.

Out of office: Councils and housing charities are lobbying the government to revoke legislation that allows office-to-residential conversions without planning approval. Critics warn these policies have wasted time and money, costing the social housing stock 28,000 new affordable homes over 11 years and, where they have been pursued, resulting in substandard properties lacking proper infrastructure and building safety.

Safety warning: Figures published by the National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) this quarter revealed that nine children under the age of 11 died after falling from windows or balconies in social rented homes in the past six years. Researchers at the University of Bristol analysed the data and found that 92% of the falls occurred from windows or balconies in flats where safety measures, such as locks or restrictors, were either absent, not working or not in use. An Inside Housing analysis on this issue found that repairs services were failing to focus on the issue. The NCMD figures were released as the Housing Ombudsman – who wrote to all landlords last year on this issue – also named and shamed 16 landlords for “inexcusable” cases of complaints related to windows.

COMMS MATTERS NOW!

This autumn is a crucial time for comms teams in housing. Housing remains in the political spotlight. The policy debate remains wide open in a range of areas that matter to our communities.

There are huge opportunities to take advantage of – and plenty of risks to manage.

It’s a fast-changing media and policy environment. Everyone should have a strategy to make sure comms land well, and a plan in place for if they don’t.

It has become easier to tell our stories again, but also harder to sell them into journalists. The media is facing a massive retrenchment with lay-offs now widespread, and the radical impact of AI on what journalists actually want means we need to think differently and more creatively. (Clue: SEO is over; journalists are now commissioning articles that they believe have the highest chance of training AI models to reference their stories and cite their sources.)

Remember, too, that goodwill can be easily lost. Not so many years ago, we had one Sir Michael Gove firmly on the side of housing, but weeks later he was launching a campaign calling on social tenants to publicly shame their landlords.

With new investment comes the roving eye of the spotlight.

If you want to find out what that means for you, we’d love to come and talk to you.

Get in touch with Bobbie or the rest of the team and let us know what you need.

WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO

Our team continues to grow as we welcome Liv Garland to Hough Bellis. Liv has joined us as Account Manager, bringing lots of PR and media experience along with fresh ideas as we take on new clients and exciting challenges.

The HB team is looking forward to seeing everyone at the Housing Community Summit next week in Liverpool. We’ve got clients speaking throughout the event to debate all of housing’s key issues and challenges. Of course, we’ll be joining our friends at Cardo Group for their now famous reception at the Cavern Club.

You might have seen our friends at The Joshua Tree – who do amazing work with children and families during and post cancer diagnosis – on the BBC recently. They have been chosen to have DIY SOS come and build them a new centre at their headquarters in Cheshire as part of this year’s Children In Need. We’re really proud to work with such a brilliant charity.

We also held a volunteering day at KidsBank (organised by the lovely Els) and supported the amazing team there with tasks such as packing toiletries bags, putting together bundles of newborn essentials, and cleaning up.

Campaigning for change

The team have been supporting BTP Architects with a campaign around building safety, including facilitating their response to the ongoing Lords inquiry into the Building Safety Regulator.

We are also working with Stepping Stone Projects, progressing with our campaigning work with them and developing an influencing strategy to engage with government on plans to end homelessness in the North of England.

After launching its pathway for ex-military women to become qualified gas engineers in just six months with Brookhouse Training, Women and Manual Trades (part of Procure Plus) has celebrated its first success. Procure Plus has had some great coverage with this case study, Laura’s story can be found here. We’re looking forward to welcoming ministerial visits to some of their schemes later in the year.

We want to share our congratulations to Cobalt chief executive Claire Griffiths, who has been appointed Chair of Liverpool City Region Housing Associations. Claire shared her thoughts in Inside Housing, calling for bold regeneration in places private developers often overlook.

We’ve been doing lots of work in the heat network market over the summer months and the industry gets set for new regulation (although the January 2026 deadline now feels hugely optimistic). We secured an exclusive opinion piece for Heat Trust in Utility Week, responding to OFGEM’s fair pricing consultation, while you can read a thought leadership double page spread from Switch2’s Richard Harrison in H&V Weekly’s July/August issue, talking about the future of smart metering.

Our friends at MSV have submitted exciting plans to transform the former Reno nightclub site in Moss Side, Manchester, with more than 200 new affordable homes in the pipeline. The story has been picked up across Manchester’s biggest titles – from the Manchester Evening News to I Love Manchester – celebrating the scheme’s community roots and bold vision.

Leading the housing debate

We’ve helped host some great events for HQN, including around ASB and the always popular Best Practice Groups for their Estate Services Hub and Housing Management Network on the evolving role of the housing officer. We’ve got an upcoming event on cuckooing and a very important event on challenges around hoarding in November, with some great speakers lined up. You can sign up to attend this event here.

That’s all for now. We’ll be back in October to give you the full details of what went down at the party conferences this year, and again to help you unpick everything you need to know from November’s budget.

Thanks for reading.

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