The dropping of the Government’s flagship planning reforms can be traced back to the Conservative’s loss in the Chesham and Amersham by-election in 2021. The Liberal Democrats did what they did best and mobilised their vote around local issues, in this instance unwanted development and fears that the Chiltern Hills were to be concreted over.
Since Chesham and Amersham, the Conservatives have lost by-elections in North Shropshire and Tiverton and Honiton, deep in Conservative country. The former Party Chairman Oliver Downden, who resigned immediately after the Tiverton and Honitorn by-election loss, once stated that the ‘privet hedges of suburbia are the privet hedges of a free people’. Indeed they might be, and they are presently voting with their feet.
The need to build more homes has never been more pressing and yet even with a majority of 66 (down from 80 in 2019) the Conservatives under Boris lack the stomach to stare down their traditional voters and make the case for house building. With the recent by-election losses, the Conservatives will now look to shore up their vote for the next election rather than push through reforms for the good of the country and that means tinkering around the edges of things like planning to portray a semblance of doing something.
In fairness to the Conservatives they have lost almost 2 years to the pandemic and spent an eye watering £400 billion keeping the country together, a sum that would warm even Cobryn’s heart. Grappling with the economic fallout of Covid is the challenge of the day for all incumbents, from Biden to Macron. We’ve already seen Michael Scott ousted in Australia. Any vision Boris’ administration had for the country over and above ‘levelling up’ and supply-side reform (I still can’t tell you what that really is) has had to be sidelined as they have been overwhelmed by ‘events dear boy, events!’.
The Conservatives will rue this short sightedness. In 2019, 57 per cent of owner-occupiers and 43 per cent of mortgage-holders voted Conservative, compared to just 22 per cent and 33 per cent for Labour respectively. The homeowner is the bastion of the Conservative vote and yet the number of middle income 25-34 year olds owning their own home has plunged in 20 years from 60% to just over 20% (Institute of Fiscal Studies via the FT). This equates to just 1 in 5 of this age group. Where is the next generation of Conservative voters coming from?
With the right to build nationalised, the market cannot react to demand without the State’s (planning) permission. It is up to the Government to address the housing supply / demand dynamic which it is evidently not willing to do in any meaningful way. Michael Gove’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill published in May 2022 is frankly, small beer.
The Conservatives are in a precarious position at this point in the electoral cycle and seemingly unable to satisfy anyone bar Team Boris. The seriousness of this position is not lost in Tory circles for if they lose the next election they may well be out of power for a generation with the introduction of Proportional Representation. Clearly, the political woes of the Conservatives is not simply the result of house building; they are, however, compounded by the electoral timebomb that is disaffected renters which has long been in train.
Rather than shoring up its 2019 vote and clinging to power, the Conservatives should be on the front foot and making a case for housing building as part of their long-term vision for the country. With its current majority, the Conservatives could right now be missing their chance to firm up their voter base for years to come. The opportunistic Liberal Democrats are going to continue their pursuit of small ‘c’ Conservatives by leaning into their fears of overdevelopment to win seats in the ‘Blue Wall’. This leaves a vacuum of ideas which could be filled by Labour, if only Kier Starmer can take centre stage and champion the millennial homeowner.
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