When Angela Rayner returned to government last week - back again as housing secretary but this time under the hyper-energised prime ministership of Andy Burnham - she faced an immediate attack. Labour has failed to make much progress on the promise to build 1.5 million new homes in a single term of government, she was forced to admit. The global economy, the cost of materials and a huge skills shortage in the construction sectors are all working against it. Day two in the job, and Rayner knows those numbers now look ambitious at best.
Perhaps unfortunately for her, Burnham is ambition in human form. A man who just “won’t have it” if you tell him it can’t be done. Rayner is falling in step with his positivity: it will be like running a marathon in under five hours, she says, but she is “hell bent” on meeting that target.
Burnham has made job even harder for her by promising that it will be achieved by creating a new generation of council housing - something this country hasn’t achieved in more than half a century. Most social housing built today is built by housing associations.
So far Burnham has been riding high on summer vibes but his big 10-year plan for the country will involve much more of a hard sell. Polling carried out by Opinium suggests only 17% of the British public think that the government can meet its housebuilding goals. He has also promised to eliminate rough sleeping, a policy that if achieved would cost relatively little to improve the national sense of wellbeing in our towns and cities. The only problem is that it is almost impossible to achieve because so many rough sleepers are suffering from many social problems that do not actually include the lack of a place they can call home.
Can Burnham and Rayner really turn a whole sector around in three years? The evidence is promising that they will have a good shot. The prime minister’s record on housing and homelessness in Manchester is not flawless, but it is solid.
In the seven years to 2025, 18,433 affordable and social homes for rent were completed in the Greater Manchester area. Of these, 2,368 were homes specifically for social rent, according to the combined authority he led. In 2025 alone, 611 new social homes were built. That’s not amazing, but it far exceeds our national record over the same period. He similarly managed to slash rough sleeping in Manchester by 57 per cent in three years by providing money for accommodation first, before providing other social support such as drug rehabilitation. Yes, numbers rose again – but they remain lower than comparable cities.
Burnham’s big idea is to bring the solutions that worked in Manchester to the rest of the country and solve the housing crisis by tackling pent-up housing needs at the bottom of the property ladder first, providing a stable, affordable social housing for those on the lowest incomes. Who could possibly oppose that?
You’d be surprised. One of the biggest barriers that Burnham faces in meeting this ambition is a growing mood of dissent around the purpose of social housing and who is granted an affordable tenancy. Though there is very little truth in it, the idea that wealthy people are able to snag a cheap social tenancy and hang onto it, while others in desperate need are forced to pay very high rents, is taking hold. There has been a wave of commentary on how housing allocation policies work, a building tide triggered by a report from the right-wing Centre for Social Justice on the issue of housing affordability, published in the aftermath of the pandemic. It reached its zenith last week with figures published by the Times showing that more than 114,000 households in the top 20 per cent of earners were living in social housing.
“Around 60 per cent of private renters have less than £100 in savings.”
That statistic is true, but it is not actually that surprising when you dig into the data. The top 20 per cent of earners by income (not wealth; that is important) includes any household taking home £78,700 before tax. That would include, for example, two nurses, or a bus driver and a council administrator, or two retirees claiming a public sector pension each, as well as their state pensions. A household with two people both earning a below-average salary before tax is still in the top fifth for income. Are these really not the families social housing is for?
Income means very little when we’re talking about the right to secure housing. In London, a family with two parents and two children in the top quintile by earnings will still find it impossible to rent a home large enough without help from Universal Credit. Meanwhile, the majority of homeowners in this country own without a mortgage. A large percentage of those are retired, with low incomes. They would not appear in the top 20 per cent of earners, but they may be incredibly wealthy when you factor in their assets.
See how easy it is to manipulate these figures to tell the story you want?
As the CSJ pointed out five years ago, there are sensible questions to be asked about whether it is right that so much money is being spent on universal credit because private renting is so expensive and home ownership remains completely outside the reach of a growing proportion. Around 60 per cent of private renters have less than £100 in savings. They are not suddenly going to be able to buy a share in a property. The think tank’s response to this, from the right, is to suggest new forms of low-cost housing but which, crucially, are not low-rent social housing preserved in state or not-for-profit ownership for future generations.
The left already has its own answer, and Burnham has articulated it: build much more housing for social (not “affordable”) rent. But he will only be able to achieve this if the general public agree that’s the right answer, and feel that their communities will benefit. He has to take on the widespread misinformation and growing disinformation about social tenancies and how they work if he wants to succeed.
There’s a huge amount of evidence for his team to draw upon. Analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, based on surveys of the G15 group of large London housing associations, showed that social tenants contribute more than £9 to the economy for every £1 they receive in housing benefit. They are able to do this because they have long-term housing stability. Any model that kicks out a tenant as soon as they start to improve their economic standing only disincentives ambition and economic participation. When you start to interrogate the criticisms of social housing for retaining better-off households, they fall apart very quickly.
The new prime minister has already demonstrated he can take a quick decision. Burnham and his team are also brilliant at social media. If they can use it to explode the myths about social housing that keep its opponents in the news, there is every chance that this new generation of council housing will get the local support it needs.
Burnham doesn’t just need to build these homes, he needs to sell them to voters. ■
Our award-winning Lead Local network has been looking at reaction to Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister and particularly his vow to eradicate rough sleeping.
Not surprisingly there's been some questions over exactly how he plans to do that, although as Jamie Lopez heard in Southport the sentiment is warmly received. And Lauren at The Valleys Lead asks what his proposal is for Wales where homelessness and housing is devolved.
Helen Dalley has been gauging the reaction in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire to Burnham's premiership, and we will have more this week on reaction from homelessness charities in Stoke to the PM's announcement too.
About the author: Hannah Fearn is a freelance journalist specialising in social affairs. She was comment editor of The Independent for seven years, and has previously worked for The Guardian, Times Higher Education and Inside Housing. She has a special interest in inequality, poverty, housing, education and life chances.
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Great article Hannah, I’ll be using the detail in this if it’s ok with my typical battles on LinkedIn. One thing you didn’t mention was prisoners on release needing housing covered by Zoe on the bunker. Another thing that will send the RW media apoplectic
There are so many hurdles to overcome to build the numbers of social houses that the country desperately needs to lift thousands of households out of temporary accommodation.
The most startling stat is how many people are eligible for social housing - the incomes that push households into the top 20% of earners. It tells an interesting story of who will benefit from the social homes Andy Burnham has promised to deliver.