Watch our panel event at the Conservative Party Conference

The G15 were at the Conservative Party Conference last week advocating for the social housing sector. In partnership with the Centre for Social Justice, we hosted a panel discussion that considered how the government can solve the social injustice of the housing crisis. You can watch the full event here.

Our Chair, Geeta Nanda, was joined by John Penrose MP, Sally Ann Hart MP, and journalist and broadcaster Liam Halliday. The whole panel was in agreement that building many more affordable homes, particularly those for social rent, is key to solving the housing crisis.

The panellists collectively recognised the class injustice of the housing crisis and how a lack of affordable housing prevents many young people from living close to their families and putting down roots in the communities they grew up in. It was promising to see Conservative MPs recognising the positive impact of the sector and supporting the of building many more social homes.

Geeta highlighted that the G15’s priority will always be maintaining existing resident's homes but, to be able to build new, affordable, homes alongside planned works, the sector must have long term funding models set out by government. She told the conference that if housing could be seen as key infrastructure, with committed ten year funding programmes, the sector would be able to achieve so much more.

Geeta also made clear the vital economic contribution social housing makes to the economy and the public sector. She drew on MTVH's recent research that found that their social tenancies contribute £713m a year to the UK economy, equivalent to £11,261 per social home, through savings to public services and investment in house building a maintenance.

Geeta ended her remarks with a clear message, the sector needs to continue building many more social homes to support families to have the best chance in life and make positive contributions to society, and it needs strong support from government to do this.