EDITOR’S COMMENT: I thought Groundhog Day was 2 February, not 13 February.
Apparently not as yet again, yet another housing minister has failed to hold their post in yet another Cabinet reshuffle.
Esther McVey lasted almost seven months to the day in post, putting her in joint first as the shortest lived housing minister with Dominic Raab and Alok Sharma since 1997.
Housing has not had a minister last more than a year in the job since 2016, and has not really had a stable housing ministerial post since Yvette Cooper.
Cooper managed to hold down the position from May 2005 to January 2008. Since then only two ministers have managed to make it beyond a year in post. Brandon Lewis held out for two years (July 2014 to July 2016) and Grant Shapps lasted 27 months (May 2010 to September 2012).
Over that time, housing has remained one of the biggest challenges for the UK, with many still unable to make it on to the housing ladder, delivery figures well below par, and continued mixed messages from government about whether enabling ownership or delivering a professionalised private rented sector is a key priority.
What is really interesting, however, is real estate’s response to McVey’s departure. It was largely uninterested. Just the continual revolving door of ministers. An ambivalence. A feeling that it almost doesn’t matter who picks up the brief, as they are unlikely to have any real impact anyway.
What has piqued the interest of the sector is the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, who many in the industry believe could be just the champion that UK investment needs (p17).
Rishi Sunak, the 39-year old former Goldman Sachs analyst and junior to Sajid Javid, is being hailed as an “upgrade” in chancellor. A chancellor who understands commerce, understands investment and knows politics, who many believe has the nous as well as the opportunity to fix the damage done by former chancellors. A chancellor who could reform stamp duty and – dare I say it – rates. The proof will be in the pudding. A pudding due to be served on 11 March.
Regardless of your (or my) personal views on Boris Johnson as prime minister, he is actually doing something, which is refreshing after the past three years of paralysis.
While it took more than a decade – and a traditionally Labour North turning blue – to get there, HS2 has been given the go-ahead. It is a decision that BoJo had to take if he really wants to “level up”, but it is also – despite the big (some may say extortionate) bill that comes with it – the right decision economically, particularly post-Brexit.
As the straight-talking Jackie Sadek writes in these very pages, HS2 is like catnip to investors, and to have pulled the plug now would be “tantamount to a bald announcement that the UK is ‘closed for business’” (p41).
Talking of closed for business, earlier this week I was expecting to spend much of this leader talking about retail. I had been expecting to write about the unfortunate hokey-cokey move by Link REIT at intu and Unbail Rodamco Westfield “significantly postponing” – aka pulling the plug on – more than €3bn of retail projects (including Croydon) because they “no longer meet the group’s return requirements”.
But alas, there is no space left to do so. You just have to read about intu’s woes on p27 and URW’s slashing on p18 and, if you want insight into why retail may not be dead and how we’ve just been doing the sums wrong, see p42 for JLL’s retail equation.
