A Red Wall Tory MP has urged his party to build 90,000 more social homes a year to tackle the chronic housing crisis.
Shaun Bailey blasts housebuilding rates over two decades - during which the Conservatives have been in power for 14 years - saying: “The UK is in the midst of a housing crunch.
“Over the last 20 years, the supply of good-quality housing has completely failed to keep pace with demand, causing ever-increasing house prices.
“This imbalance has led to millions living in inadequate homes, with the poorest and the most marginalised in society most vulnerable.”
Mr Bailey, 30, won the key seat of West Bromwich West at the December 2019 election when the Tories smashed through Labour’s traditional strongholds across swathes of the North and Midlands.
Writing in a collection of essays for the Conservative-linked Bright Blue think tank, he reveals four-fifths of his constituency casework relates to housing.
He calls on the Government to commit to building another 90,000 social homes a year, use empty public land for development and introduce standards at least identical, if not stricter, for social housing providers as they are for private landlords.
“The quality of housing a child grows up in has a measurable, vast impact on their future success, while poor-quality housing continues to impact health and opportunity,” he writes.
“Decades of low investment have led to a social housing sector that is under increasing strain, with a growing waiting list of over 1.2 million applicants and a huge number of substandard homes that fail to provide safe accommodation or meet modern regulations.”
Mr Bailey writes that “with investment and reform, social housing can play a pivotal and exciting part in alleviating the housing crisis, particularly as those most affected by the housing crisis are traditionally the most suitable for social housing”.
He adds: “To achieve this, we must return to the principle of providing an ample supply of reasonable housing, requiring the nation to simultaneously invest in both more social housing and better quality social housing.”
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