General election 2024: A truer picture for housebuilding stats that will surprise you
We need to talk about the main parties’ plans for housebuilding, but before we get to that there’s something important we need to discuss. Everything you thought you knew about the housebuilding numbers in this country is wrong. Quite dramatically wrong. And that has a bearing on, well, rather a lot when it comes to this topic.
I realise this is probably the last thing you need to process, with only a few weeks left until the election and rather a lot going on besides, but bear with me, because this is rather important.
Let’s start with the conventional picture most of us have in our heads about housebuilding in this country (actually in this case we’re talking about England, since most of the main statistics – and political housebuilding pledges – focus on England). It comes courtesy of a dataset published each quarter by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
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This dataset shows us the number of homes built in England – either housing starts (when work begins on a home) or completions (when the work is done).
Now, it’s not as if the government has someone with a clipboard going round the country noting how many buildings are being built; instead, the department uses data on building warranties (you generally get a 10 year warranty with a new home). This might all seem like too much information but, well, bear with me.
These numbers tell quite a simple story. Back in the 1960s and 70s, England was building lots and lots of homes – an annual average between 1969 and 1979 of around 260,000 – and, in some years, more than 300,000.
But then, in the following years, the numbers dropped – and fast. They have never come anywhere close to those 1960s highs. In the past decade, between 2013 and 2023, the average number of homes being built was only 150,000 – way lower than the comparable period in the early 1970s.
Now, when you hear political parties talk about wanting to build 300,000 homes you probably wonder to yourself (I often have) about how on earth they could hit those numbers. But that’s what brings us to the main point here.
When you read in this or that party manifesto about a housebuilding target of 300,000 in England, the parties aren’t talking about the numbers you’re probably thinking about – those ones which show housebuilding at only 150,000 in the past decade. They’re talking about another set of numbers entirely.
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Inside a ‘housing revolution’
Because it turns out there’s an entirely separate dataset (from the same government department) which attempts to measure housebuilding slightly differently. This one counts the entire housing stock across the country – and when you know how many homes there are you can measure the change from one year to the next.
And that matters for two important reasons. First, because back in the 1960s and ’70s we weren’t just building lots of new homes, we were also knocking down lots of old homes. There were enormous programmes of slum demolitions.
If you really wanted to compare our housing availability today with back then, you really ought to adjust for that. Yet those conventional housebuilding figures do not.
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The second reason the other dataset matters is that it turns out those insurance figures the government has typically used to measure homebuilding no longer cover most of the housing market. There’s a massive gap.
All of which is to say, looking at the other dataset, and how the total number of homes changes from year to year (net addition, as it’s technically called) gives a far better picture of what’s really going on in the housing market.
And what is really going on is rather different to that conventional picture. In fact, the number of homes being built in recent years isn’t markedly lower than the comparable period in the 1970s. It’s higher!
This truer picture shows an average of 207,000 homes being added to England’s housing supply in the past decade, compared with an average of 198,000 between 1970 and 1980. It shows that actually we are building more new homes these days than we have done for some time.
You may or may not find this mind-blowing (I did when it was first explained to me by housing economist Neal Hudson but then perhaps that’s just me) but it’s certainly important. And these numbers are certainly more representative of what’s actually going on than the ones usually trotted out by journalists.
The other upshot of all of this is that those housebuilding figures each of the parties have in their manifestos look somewhat more doable than they did when looking through the other, flawed dataset. All of a sudden the gap between current housebuilding and, say, Labour’s 300,000 home target is not 140,000 but 65,000.
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Even so, it’s an open question about whether those targets are achievable. Labour have provided little extra money for housebuilding, instead committing to planning reform, which may well help, but might not narrow the gap as quickly as they hope.
Indeed, the only main nationwide party to have committed to a specific increase in council housebuilding, with specific sums, is the Liberal Democrats, who promised to spend £6.2bn on 150,000 social homes.
One thing that certainly seems to be the case is that with house prices high and immigration also at record levels, the UK will need considerably more homes in the coming years, notwithstanding the fact that the underlying picture is slightly less dire than the conventional statistics suggest.
Fewer police officers are working on unsolved murder cases amid warnings the Metropolitan Police is dangerously stretched.
Five officers from the force are moving from a specialist cold case department investigating the 30-year-old murder of Atek Hussain to instead bolster basic command units.
Mr Hussain, 32, was stabbed in the heart as he returned from work in September 1994. He managed to stagger to his home and tell his family that his attackers were Asian before collapsing.
No charges have ever been brought in the case despite two focused appeals by the police on the 10th and 20th anniversaries of his killing.
Mr Hussain’s daughter Yasmin was 10 when she watched her father die in their family home. She told Sky News she had hoped the Met would launch a renewed appeal on the 30th anniversary of his death this week.
“I waited and waited as September approached, hoping they’d say something but all of the officers I’d been dealing with have either retired or moved on, and it seems nobody knows what to do with me,” she said.
“One person told me to call 101.”
Yasmin Hussain has launched her own appeal for help to find her father’s killers
The Met told Sky News the case is not currently active. However, no unsolved murder investigation is ever closed and Mr Hussain’s case was last reviewed by its Serious Crime Review Group in August.
“Should any new information come to light, it will be assessed accordingly,” it said in a statement.
“In order to better protect the public, including the prevention of future homicides, we are moving some experienced officers from specialist units to bolster BCU (basic command unit) public protection teams to ensure they have the right skills, experience and capacity.
“The MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) continues to maintain a strong capability to investigate cold case homicides. No unsolved homicide is ever closed and all cases remain under review.”
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Clive Driscoll, a former Detective Chief Inspector of the Met Police who finally secured two convictions for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, explains how the forces deal with cold cases.
“Every two years you would review the case to see if there are opportunities. The one that always stands out is forensics opportunities. Forensics moved on while we’ve been talking. So that’s what you would do with a review, you would be looking to see whether or not something has changed from the last time you saw it.”
Mr Driscoll says forces across the country are facing challenges including a shortage of officers and staff, greater scrutiny of the police and an issue with confidence among officers.
Former Met Police DCI Clive Driscoll
“They feel that maybe their job has become harder,” he told Sky News before urging police units to go the extra mile.
“As hard as it may be for a police officer, it can’t be even a slightest comparison of how hard it must be for Mr Hussain’s children who’ve lost their father.”
Recent data shows the annual number of unsolved homicides across Britain has more than doubled since 2010. That is thought to be driven almost entirely by a surge in larger police forces, in particular the Met.
On Wednesday, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the force as “dangerously stretched”, telling an audience at the Police Foundation that a wave of new pressures, a lack of investment, abuse and insults of the police and reduced confidence among officers has left London less safe.
Mr Driscoll warned that failing to properly review unsolved homicides sends a dangerous message.
“We don’t want to send the message out to people that feel they can take the life of a human being and after a certain amount of time ‘oh that’s alright then I’ve got away with it’. The message must always be that if there is an opportunity to affect an arrest, put someone before a court then we will take it. We must always show that we will not forget the victim and also that out there is someone who felt that they can take someone’s life.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Atek Hussain had spent the evening working at his family-run restaurant in Croydon before arriving home to Burnels Avenue in East Ham at around 2.35am on 18 September 1994.
Officers believe he had just got out of his blue Vauxhall Cavalier and was walking towards his front door when he was attacked and stabbed in the chest.
In the absence of a renewed public plea from the police, Yasmin Hussain has launched her own appeal for help finding her father’s killers.
If you have information that could help police, call 101 or post @MetCC, or to remain 100% anonymous contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.
UK
Mohamed al Fayed ‘carried Viagra’ and ‘cherry picked’ women from Harrods shop floor, ex-employee claims
A former member of the Harrods management team has told how Mohamed al Fayed would “cherry pick” women from the shop floor.
Speaking to Sky News anonymously, the woman described the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, as “demonic” and said he “controlled everything with fear”.
Lawyers representing 37 alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Fayed branded him a “monster” who was “enabled by a system that pervaded Harrods” at a news conference on Friday.
The former employee of the luxury department store, which the Egyptian businessman took control of in 1985, worked at Harrods at the height of his power.
“We were all told Harrods is the greatest place on Earth – but he controlled everything with fear,” she said.
“The power dynamic was so strong, in the blink of an eye you would lose your career and they would try and destroy you. It was this dark psychological trap and everybody was caught.”
She said she heard stories Fayed, known to staff as “the chairman”, would grope people although she was never a victim herself.
Harrods department store in London. Pic: AP
“The chairman would walk around the store and he would cherry pick people from the shop floor, if you had blond hair and brown eyes you were favoured,” she said.
“He used to say, ‘I want that one up in my office now’. He used to carry Viagra around in his pocket, and people were so scared of his ‘floor walks’ – if you weren’t smiling enough you were in the shit, if you smiled too much you were also in the shit.”
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The ex-employee, who worked at Harrods in her first job after leaving university, said when women were called to Fayed’s office they “couldn’t say no”.
“I would sit her down and I would say I need to let you know what you are walking into,” she said.
“It’s suddenly a pay rise, and you’ll be invited to expensive events and lavished with expensive gifts but really you need to be aware of something.
“I said you will get invited to Park Lane, and parties where there will be lots of rich men, and you would be invited to sleep with people.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
She said she was once asked to see Fayed in his lounge-like office where he was wearing his slippers and said: “When are you going to come up and work for me here?”
The woman said she told him she did not want to work there and went back to her normal job.
“Afterwards he would smile at me and was courteous but then I started getting extra money in my pay packet. I went to the pay office and they said it’s a bonus for what you are doing. It didn’t last long but it happened just after he’d asked to meet him.”
The woman said she now feels “really conflicted” as she was “vulnerable too”.
“It was my first job leaving university. It leaves me feeling angry that we put up with things in that generation, that was our norm,” she added.
Harrods has said in a statement it is “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
A body has been found in the search for a missing hospital chaplain who starred in a Channel 4 documentary.
Katherine Watson, 50, was last seen in the Heaton Road area of Newcastle, at about 1pm on Thursday and Northumbria Police had become “increasingly concerned” for her welfare.
But after “extensive searches”, the force said a body had been found in the Jesmond Dene area of the city. Although formal identification has yet to take place, “it is believed to be Katherine”, they added.
“Her next of kin have been made aware and are being supported by specially-trained officers,” it said.
“This is an incredibly sad outcome and our thoughts are with Katherine’s loved ones at this difficult time. We will continue to support them in any way we can and we ask that their privacy is respected.”
Also known as Reverend Captain Katie Watson, she joined the army in her late teens, serving in Bosnia in the 1990s and as part of the Royal Military Police.
“Once you have seen genocide first-hand on the streets of a European country, there is nothing left in the world that can faze you after that,” she told the Church Times in 2022, as the Geordie Hospital documentary was first aired on Channel 4.
“I have seen the worst of humanity and I have seen, and continue to see, the very best of it.”
Ms Watson worked at the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for more than 16 years and was made head of chaplaincy in 2020.
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Channel 4’s documentary Geordie Hospital was a six-part series that filmed hospital staff through a shift, featuring a cast including porters, surgeons, dental nurses and chaplains.
Speaking about her role in the show, Ms Watson said: “We only have two things to offer, the gifts of time and presence, but we give them whole-heartedly.”
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There was an outpouring of support online for Ms Watson following the news she was missing.
“She baptised our baby boy when he passed away at birth and presided over his funeral,” one person wrote on X. “She’s such a wonderful person who gave us unwavering support through our darkest hours.”
Another said: “The compassion and care you gave me and my family when our mum passed last year was a tremendous blessing and support.”
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