Provision of Council Housing

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Hinchliff]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will come to right to buy later in my speech.

As Bevan described,

“the speculative builder, by his very nature, is not a plannable instrument.”—[Official Report, 6 March 1946; Vol. 420, c. 451.]

They build what makes them most money, while we need our councils empowered to assess the needs of their communities and directly deliver for them, because that is in the public interest.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend extensively quotes Aneurin Bevan, a man with whom he shares the honour of being unfairly suspended from the parliamentary Labour party. I am sure that, like Aneurin Bevan, he will return and go on to deliver greater things. Does he agree that a mass council house building programme could help to drive down rents in the private sector, because it is the lack of council house provision that has allowed private rents to rocket, pricing people out?

[Chris Hinchliff]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct in his assessment of one of the many benefits of council housing.

The provision of council housing is uniquely important for meeting the Government’s objectives, because of the risk in designing housing policy around a target delivered by a market over which we have limited control. Once again, Bevan was right when he said that committing to general housing targets would be “crystal gazing” and “demagogic”. He also stated:

“The fact is that if at this moment we attempted to say that, by a certain date, we will be building a certain number of houses, that statement would rest upon no firm basis of veracity”.—[Official Report, 17 October 1945; Vol. 414, c. 1232.]

It is only with council housing supplied directly by public authorities that we can give real confidence to the electorate in our ability to deliver. The last time we were building 300,000 homes a year, nearly half the total was council housing, and if we want to secure an increase in construction to 1.5 million new homes over the course of this Parliament, the lion’s share of the balance must come through council housing.