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1/3 of voters think ministers can’t resolve the housing crisis

More than one in three Conservative voters believe the government is doing a bad job at improving housing in Britain – more than those who believe it is being effective, exclusive polling for the Guardian has revealed.

As Michael Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, published a long-delayed bill reforming aspects of private renting on Wednesday, Ipsos found 34% of people who voted Tory in 2019 now think the government is failing on the issue and only 29% believe it is doing a good job.

It also found voters believe building social housing is more important than increasing the supply of homes to buy, despite a focus by the government and the Labour opposition on reigniting the dream of home ownership.

Fifty-four per cent of the more than 2,000 British adults polled last weekend said more council housing and homes to rent from housing associations were most needed, compared with 35% who said more homes to buy outright or with a mortgage were the national priority.

Rishi Sunak is reportedly considering reviving a multibillion-pound help-to-buy scheme to boost home ownership. On Wednesday, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said he would build more houses, “backing the builders, not the blockers”.

“We understand the dream of home ownership and the sense of security it gives to working people to have a roof over their head which is their own,” Starmer said, as he claimed that Sunak’s plan to drop housebuilding targets would result in a dramatic fall in the number of homes being built.

The polling is unlikely to cheer Labour, however. Compared with Sunak’s administration, only 35% thought a Labour government would do a better job at improving housing in Britain. In contrast, the same amount thought Labour would make no difference, and almost one in five thought it would worsen things.

As the full renters’ reform bill was published on Wednesday, Gove told the BBC Newscast podcast: “No-fault evictions go. And one of the big reasons is that these evictions, or the threat of these evictions, have been used by rogue landlords to intimidate tenants into accepting poor standards or extortionate rent increases.”

With stronger laws allowing evictions for antisocial behaviour, involving as little as two weeks’ notice, he said renters could be evicted “if you are causing trouble for other tenants… or behaving in a way which creates distress and havoc for others”.

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