‘War spirit needed to fix housing shortage’

Only a shake-up on par with drive to build Spitfires can save the Tories, warns Letwin

MINISTERS and officials must invoke Britain’s effort to build Spitfires during the Second World War to help construct the homes the country needs, one of the Government’s key housing advisers says today.

Sir Oliver Letwin, who is carrying out a major review for Theresa May, says infrastructure must be organised like wartime aircraft production to solve the housing crisis.

He warns that the slow provision of new power lines and transport links is holding up the construction of thousands of homes by “years and years”. In an interview with The Sunday Tel

egraph, he calls for a new cross-government task force to coordinate the installation of utilities on large sites, warning that those involved in the process must “get their act together”.

The Prime Minister, who has pledged to make housing her number one domestic priority, set a target of building 300,000 homes per year, but has been accused of shying away from “radical” measures to increase building.

Sir Oliver suggested that county councils, Highways England, National Grid and power firms were dragging their heels over providing the necessary infrastructure.

“When we were fighting the Second World War and we needed a lot of Spit- fires, Lord Beaverbrook [then minister of aircraft production] got to work and just mobilised a lot of people so that all the things you needed for Spitfires were got into the right bit of the factory. Britain depended on it.

“This is not that urgent, but it is quite urgent. It is a major plank of policy and it has a big effect economically. Somebody has got to go round and actually get all the bits together so you can get the Spitfires. At the moment that doesn’t happen.”

In a separate analysis likely to cause alarm in Downing Street, two of Mrs May’s former aides warn that the Conservatives will be unable to win a majority at the 2022 election unless the Government reverses falling levels of home ownership.

Analysis produced by the think tank Onward, run by Will Tanner, Mrs May’s former deputy head of policy, concludes that the number of private renters is increasing faster in marginal seats the Tories need to win in 2022, than in safer Conservative-held constituencies.

Mr Tanner, whose think tank was launched last month by Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, and Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, warned the prospect of owning a home “is becoming a pipe dream for a generation”.

Ministers must “take steps to increase the number of people who own their home if they want to win in 2022”, he said.

Neil O’Brien, an MP who also worked in Downing Street before his election last year and whose paper on housing will be published by Onward tomorrow, urged the Government to take