During Chancellor Rachel Reeves‘ spending review, she remained silent on how many of Labour’s 1.5 million new homes will be social. She did announce £39 billion over ten years for ‘affordable’ housing. This is a lot more than the £2bn she pledged in the Spring Statement. But she also hasn’t detailed what she defines as affordable.

Reeves herself rents out her former home in South London for £3,200 per month. Is that ‘affordable’? And more broadly, 85 MPs are landlords this parliament – more than half of which are from Labour (also the biggest party).

Rachel Reeves: not nearly enough in the spending review

That said, it is possible that Labour’s dire polling and the lurch to Reform are pressuring them to do better, like we saw with the recent Winter Fuel payment U-turn. But Labour’s annual £3.9bn over five years (and five more if they get elected) will only make around 35,000 ‘affordable’ homes a year available (based on Reeves’ Spring Statement estimate of £2bn for 18,000). And there are 1.3 million households on the waiting list for social housing. That will not nearly fix the problem, especially as it’s unclear how many will be social. Nor is it clear what ‘affordable’ means.

At present, we’ve gone backwards. Analysis from Crisis shows that there was a net loss of over 180,000 social homes over the past 10 years through sales and demolitions outpacing builds.

And as Alex Clegg, Economist at the Resolution Foundation, has said:

Over a million children living in poverty today would not be below the poverty line were it not for sky-high housing costs, especially in the private rented sector

Think large

The thing with social rent is the tenant is still paying large sums that do not contribute to ownership of the property. In fact, social housing should be reimagined so the monthly amount paid contributes to ownership of the property with the housing stock organised and provided at cost price.

On top of the seemingly lacklustre housing commitment, Reeves has announced above inflation social rent increases to help pay for it. As well as higher rents for the least well off, this can only increase the benefits bill for the government. 73% of social renters already claim legacy housing benefit or that element of universal credit.

Despite housing being a common necessity to all that could be organised at cost price, Real Estate is the most profitable industry in the UK. Top companies average an astonishing £686,000 of profit per year per employee. That’s a private tax on homes at 23 times the UK average salary, per employee.

This is a scandal that Labour should end. But that doesn’t look likely – not least after the spending review.

Featured image via the Canary

By James Wright

This post was originally published on Canary.