The BIG ISSUE cutting ministers off from spending on their portfolios is wrecking Britain?

 The centralisation of public spend in the UK has been in the hands of very few people for the last 14 years, Ministers and powerful secretaries of state right through the Austerity years had control of the cuts they doled out onto local government bodies and society in general until Boris Johnson PM was replaced in office by Rishi Sunak and his sidekick Jeremy Hunt.

Hunt immediately began to ensure his sweaty palms touched every bit of the Nation's lifestyle and spending ability, cutting off ministries from spending unless  ministers and secretaries of state crawled towards his feet to seek the info on how much they can spend. Total control exists and some ministries have organised pen and pencil amnesties to help their dire situations.

Michael Gove MP found himself in charge of Housing along with other issues of great importance as the state is dragged into a doldrum situation with an estimated 96% of people touched by the current economic disaster we find ourselves in as well as the abysmal handling of a not free for most, free market economy from the Government.

Housing, having a safe and secure shelter over the heads of you and your family is the biggest issue in everyone's life. But the economic disaster this Government presides over has increased the rent Landlords charge, forced up construction costs and forced many developers who may deliver ‘affordable homes’ to bring their building sites to a grinding halt as mortgages are forced up in an attempt to slow runaway inflation.

Michael Gove is fully aware of the need to develop ever more Council and Social Housing and has said so publicly on a number of occasions. But Free-Marketeer Chancellor Hunt had knocked back his requests in favour of a stagnant housing market that will halt the dive in property values caused through his Governments Members of Parliament being unable to control the actions of the money markets once Liz Truss the person the current prime minister Rishi Sunak came second to in a vote of Conservative party members.

Currently (31 March 2023)* 307 Local Authorities in England have a responsibility towards Housing. Some have tried to palm off that responsibility to Housing Associations and arms length management companies but the ultimate responsibility lies with those Councils.

In an attempt to steal the news before the 2023 local government elections Michael Gove has persuaded Chancellor Hunt to allow Councils to retain ‘right to buy’ receipts for the next two years allowing them to build new social housing with the cash.

His estimate is that Councils should be able to build 4000 homes using that cash within the specified time period.gifting each Council with the responsibility for housing the opportunity to develop 13 new homes each for the communities which cover the whole of England.

Michael Gove's own think tank, Bright Blue for which he writes regularly issued a major report last week:

The Rt Hon Michael Gove, Secretary of State, commented:

“Every single person in this country, no matter where they are from, what they do or how much money they earn, deserves to live in a home that is decent, safe, secure and affordable. Along with the campaigners and political colleagues who have contributed to this thoughtful collection of essays, I am more committed than ever to building a modern, radical and successful conservative housing policy that works for everyone, whether they rent or own.”

It's an element of Bright Blue's long term plan to develop social housing in high enough numbers to resolve many problems that society faces today suggests that the Government needs Councils and their partners to build 90,000 social houses each year. Its thought 1,000,000 new social homes could actually help society enormously.

The problem that we have is that those who control top politicians are blind to the needs of the majority of their constituents and sit in the belief that people will be happy to serve the 1% of top earners and it doesn’t matter how badly they are treated by society but liberal conservatives like Michael Gove have come to realise that an out of kilter free market economy run to make the rich richer is not what most Conservatives want but unfortunately with people like Hunt and Sunak holding the reins nothing is ever going to change unless people get interested and vote against them in high enough numbers.