I had to laugh today when shadow welfare secretary Liam Byrne has admitted the Labour government failed the housing sector while in power.
Byrne said: “We just do not think we did a good enough job on housing.”
Their solution? To hold a review into what they had got wrong and to put Caroline Flint in charge of that review.
Is that the same Caroline Flint who was housing Minister from Jan 2008 and who said of Home Information Packs ” we were responding to public concern that buyers often had to pay duplicate costs for information that the seller should take responsibility for. I think that desire to stop duplication and have information in one place for people to access is as important today. Hips get a bad rep but I don’t believe that they have affected the market and I think it’s rather cheeky of people to try to drag them in. I think we can improve the product and I’m willing to work with agents and solicitors on this.”
Given this gobbledegook, I wouldn’t hold out much hope from their review when it takes place.
Meanwhile, the Coalition has started a review of their own, headed up by Oliver Letwin. Let’s hope they have some much better ideas for getting the market moving again and incentivising house building, which is at an all time low.