Minister reiterates £3.8bn decarbonisation fund, but omits fire safety, as Spending Review unveiled

In a sector ‘right to respond’ session following the minister’s speech, Eamon McGoldrick, managing director of the National Federation of ALMOs, said that the minister’s silence on the topic was “really strange” in view of the Building Safety Bill currently going through parliament.

“We do know that many of you as landlords in the room are spending tens of millions now and in the very short term to make sure, quite rightly, that buildings are safe for our residents to live in,” he said.

He added: “[Mr Pincher] needs to be prepared to keep going to Treasury and asking and begging, because as I see it, certainly from the council perspective, if you’ve got the enhanced Decent Homes Standard, you do all the building safety works, and you deal with zero carbon – the money just won’t fill it. So it may be that… some councils need some support at certain points on their 30-year business plans to make them work.”

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said that the absence of any reference to building safety was the “biggest omission” in the minister’s speech.

“It is the biggest challenge we face, it is a non-negotiable for us,” Ms Henderson said. “The safety of our residents is the number one policy – they must feel safe and they must be safe, and we need the government to be 100 per cent focused on that.”

However, Ms Henderson welcomed many “positives” in Mr Pincher’s speech, including the reference to the decarbonisation fund.

“To have a minister, ahead of the Spending Review, ahead of COP26 reaffirm the Conservative manifesto commitment of £3.8bn for a Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is fantastic. We need that money, that money will be a game-changer, it will be a real commitment of intent.”

Mr Pincher was speaking as chancellor Rishi Sunak today wrote to the secretaries of state to launch the anticipated Spending Review 2021. This will set out resource and capital budgets for departments for the years 2022-23 to 2024-25, and the devolved administrations’ block grants for the same period. The process will conclude alongside the upcoming Autumn Budget, now scheduled for 27 October.

A multi-year review has been expected since the 2019 Spending Review was restricted to an ‘accelerated’ one-year round ahead of Brexit, and further delayed during the pandemic last year.

In a press notice, Treasury said the review would set out how the government would “build back better”. This would include “levelling up across the UK to increase and spread opportunity” and moves to “strengthen the private sector where it is weak”.

And it said the government would set out how it would “[lead] the transition to net zero across the country and more globally”.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr Sunak said: “At the Spending Review later this year, I will set out how we will continue to invest in public services and drive growth, while keeping the public finances on a sustainable path.”

The Budget will include a new circa £12bn annual fund for health and social care over the next three years, announced today, funded through an increase in National Insurance contributions.

Representations for the Autumn Budget and Spending Review are now open until 5pm on 30 September 2021.

Update: at 14.00pm, 08.09.21

This story was updated to attribute the quote to Eamon McGoldrick, managing director of the National Federation of ALMOs, which had previously been attributed to John Bibby, CEO of ARCH.