Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election on 8 June caught the nation off guard.
There is no certainty as to what the battleground issues will be over the next nine weeks, but housing is likely to be a hot topic.
The prime minister has so far overseen the re-release of Garden Villages, a tug-of-war over estate regeneration policies and the removal of one half of her predecessor’s Help to Buy policy.
But what are the key moments of May’s real estate record over her 280 days in office?
13 July 2016 – Takes office
Theresa May becomes prime minister after Andrea Leadsom steps aside in the Conservative leadership competition. Between 14-17 July May appoints new cabinet ministers, including:
- Sajid Javid, formerly business secretary, as secretary for communities and local government
- Gavin Barwell as minister for housing and planning, and minster for London
- Greg Clark as head of business, energy and industrial strategy
- Philip Hammond as chancellor of the exchequer
1-4 October 2016 – Conservative party conference
After a summer hiatus where the government, and the rest of the country, reeled from the implications of the EU referendum result, the conference was the first chance to get an idea of the government thinking. The consensus was that property, particularly housing, and infrastructure were going to be important.
- Sajid Javid announced a £5bn investment package to support housebuilding, consisting of a £3bn homebuilders’ fund and £2bn of new investment for housebuilding on publicly owned brownfield land.
- Gavin Barwell said he would end the focus on promoting home ownership at all the expense of all other tenures, with a focus on affordable housing.
- Philip Hammond pledged £220m for the UK technology sector
25 November 2016 – Autumn statement
Philip Hammond’s first, and last, Autumn statement was the first opportunity to lay down the government’s economic policies, and again infrastructure and affordable housing were at the fore. The chancellor announced:
- £1.4bn for 40,000 additional affordable homes through capital grants for housing associations
- A £2.3bn infrastructure fund to unlock new homes in areas of high demand
- Continued support for home ownership through help-to-buy equity loans and ISAs
- London would receive £3.2bn as its share of national affordable housing funding to deliver 90,000 affordable homes, alongside a relaxation on what it could spend it on
- A ban on letting fees (which led to a share price tumble for estate agents)
- Devolution continuity in Scotland, Wales and English metropolitan regions, alongside a Northern Powerhouse strategy with an additional £556m committed for Northern local enterprise partnerships
- A large focus on infrastructure spending, asking the National Infrastructure Commission to recommend how spending could increase to more than 1% of GDP each year by 2020.
22 February 2017 – Housing white paper
The much-delayed paper (it was meant to be announced before Parliament’s summer hiatus) revealed a complete U-turn in Conservative housing policy, though very few concrete changes. It included:
- New planning rules for councils to plan for long-term build-to-rent homes
- Promotion of longer-term tenancies in private rented schemes
- Forcing housebuilders to start construction in two years instead of three
- A new housing delivery test, which will force local authorities to grant planning permissions if they fail to reach land release targets.
- Local councils to be allowed to increase planning fees by 20%
- Consultation on charging for planning appeal fees
- Smaller sites to be promoted in local plans for SME housebuilders
- Starter home policy watered down
- High density development expected where land is in low supply
8 March 2017 − Budget
After the upheavals of the previous six months, the Budget was in the end a damp squib for real estate. But it did include:
- A £435m cut in rates, centred around a £300m fund for discretionary rates relief, to be administered by local authorities and capped at £50 a month for those coming out of rates relief
- A £1,000 discount for pubs valued at less than £100,000.
- London devolution arrangements centred around a memorandum of understanding with the Greater London Authority and government to allow more value capture from infrastructure
- Corporation tax will be reduced to 19%, and reduced to 17% by 2020.
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