Housing and devolution – A partial conference report

On Wednesday, I attended the Glasgow Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence conference, Housing Matters: How did we get here and where are we going?.  The event was interrogating what devolution has done for us, among other considerations.  My long-term collaborator, Alex, and I spoke about the different policy instrumentation across the different constitutent parts of the UK used in bringing in different versions of Awaab’s law.

The conference reminded me how facilitative and engaging these events can be when housing researchers and practitioners get in the same room together.  We are all rather nervous of each other, but barriers get broken down pretty quickly and amazingly rich conversations take place.  I’m kicking myself that I couldn’t stay for the second day but had to get back.

There was lots going on at the conference but, for this blog, the most interesting session was the opening plenary.

In that session, Bob Smith spoke about Wales, Jocelyn Fleming about Scotland, and Martin Haran about Northern Ireland.  They were addressing “opportunity risk, impact and the future” of devolution.  What struck me about the session was that, while there are small points of difference, there is a large amount of commonality.  The issues are the same across these jurisdictions – lack of supply, a construction and general skills deficit, and the issues about build quality and retrofitting seem to be the same. I think it was Ken Gibb, who chaired the session, who spoke about a deliverability gap, which was a nice way to put it. Of course, there are differences.  Bob, in particular, spoke about the lack of a housing strategy for Wales (compare with Scotland’s long-term 2040 strategy).

The other issue to which they all spoke is that, while we do have some levers to influence change, Westminster retains considerable power and levers.  And finally, they all recognised that, while our governments might have the best intentions and be really “progressive” (whatever that means), they have a basic problem of a lack of supply with which they have to contend.

It reminded me of Jack Straw’s comment when the Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill was being discussed in Parliament in 1976/7, that the Bill would not deliver one new house.  It was, in other words, a way of juggling the deckchairs.  For all the good intentions, this is what we are still up against.