Political

Letter from the Leader: We need to think big says Nick Clegg

Another week, another email from Nick Clegg.

Last week, having received the third email in this series once again on a Sunday, I asked:

Sunday. Really? The timing of these emails doesn’t fit what I know about the email reading habits of Liberal Democrat members, which would suggest this is far from the best time to send these emails and means their actual readership is being cut by around a third. However… I’m not privy to the stats for these emails, so perhaps I’m wrong.

Astute and punctual readers will note that today is Saturday.

(Details of how to sign up to these weekly emails are here and you can read the previous Letters from the Leader here.)

Letter from Nick Clegg - email header

Dear Mark,

I’m writing this as we come to the end of an incredibly hectic week in politics.

The negotiations over the budget in Europe, securing of a much needed ceasefire in Gaza, rising speculation about the upcoming Leveson report. And Ed Davey’s important announcement of a landmark coalition deal on low carbon energy that will deliver billions of pounds of investment in clean technology and create thousands of jobs.

But in this letter I want to focus on an issue that wasn’t so high on the radar screen, but matters enormously to me: housing. I gave a speech to the National House Building Council (the people who issue guarantees for new homes) on Thursday which brought the numbers into focus for me and made me determined to step up our efforts.

As a country, we have built too few homes for far too long – and the economic and social consequences are massive. Prices out of reach of too many young families. Our economy vulnerable to boom and bust in the housing market. The housing benefit bill spiralling. Homelessness and overcrowding.

All these problems are solvable but only if we think big.

We’ve been talking about housing in the coalition for well over two years. At every budget and autumn statement we’ve brought forward new measures. We’ve reduced red tape and regulation for house builders. We’ve supported mortgage lending with products to help first time buyers. We’re backing housing associations with £10bn of treasury guarantees.

And yet it isn’t enough. This year we will probably build just 110,000 homes. If that sounds like a lot to you let me put you straight: it’s one of the worst years since the Second World War. When you realise that the population grew by about 270,000 households it’s clear it’s nowhere near enough.

No wonder prices are out of reach for so many families. The average first time buyer is now 35, and home ownership is falling for the first time in a generation.

The only way out of this crisis is to build our way out.

This week I announced funding of £225m to kick start development at eight sites, each with plans for over 5,000 new homes. But I want to think bigger – much bigger. We can’t go on building a home here and a home there and hoping it’s enough.

I want us to go back to some of Britain’s proud heritage of urban development and build a new generation of “garden cities” – places that will grow, thrive and become part of the fabric of the nation.

Of course development is always controversial. It’s right to protect our precious rural landscape and not let England be concreted over. But the point I’ve been making in government (and there have been some lively debates) is that planning big new settlements is the best way to protect our countryside because the alternative is endless urban sprawl.

Instead of eating away at the green belt, we can build big and even designate new green belt around new towns and cities. I think that’s why even the Telegraph was supportive of the plans I outlined this week.

We could easily build new garden cities totalling a million new homes in the next ten years without building on any green belt, National Parks or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. And by doing it we could deliver homes people can afford in places they want to live.

We can’t do this overnight. Scale and ambition take time. But I believe if we put aside partisan politics and think collectively about the housing needs of the next generation, we could set Britain on track for a major wave of new development, new jobs, and new hope.

Best wishes,

Nick Clegg signature

Nick Clegg

Ps If you want to help our party campaign on this and other issues you can do something to help. A donation of just £10, or whatever you can afford, will go directly to Lib Dem campaigners across the country.

4 responses to “Letter from the Leader: We need to think big says Nick Clegg”

  1. Aldo this is the second e-mail to feature English only policy initiatives to be sent to non-English members. Perhaps he needs to devolution proof his e-mail list.

    • Actually yes. On the one hand the biggest Lib Dem successes have been in English only domestic policies so I am not surprised Clegg is concentrating on promoting them. On the other hand the Lib Dems of all the Federal Parties get devolution more than the others.

    • Detail proofing them might be good too – a lot of blue sky thinking but no sense of how any of it might actually happen. Still written by Richard Reeves…..?

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