Stop tinkering, Mr Cameron

 

October 22, 2013

Before the ‘Special One’ came along, Chelsea Football Club was managed by a certain Claudio Ranieri. He became famous as the ‘Tinkerman’ because he couldn’t resist the temptation to tweak his team selections despite having a superb squad of players paid for by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovic.

His constant fiddling with the line-up unsettled the notoriously fickle international megastars in the dressing room – and led to inconsistent performances. In the end, the owner got fed up with all this tinkering and unceremoniously tweaked Ranieri out of his club and so began Chelsea’s love affair with the ‘special’ Jose Mourinho.
Our government is falling into all the same traps when it comes to building related policy. It seems incapable of having an idea and then allowing it to grow and flourish. They can’t resist the temptation to tinker.
The latest victim of this crass approach is Mark Prisk. After less than a year in the job of Housing Minister he has been dumped in David Cameron’s mini-reshuffle. And the really sad thing is that Prisk was one of those rarest of beasts – a minister who seemed to be on top of his brief.
Bonfire
A surveyor by profession – not a career politician – he had taken to the role with gusto and introduced a number of initiatives. His ‘bonfire of the housing standards’ looks likely to simplify and, therefore, reduce the cost of house building while driving forward minimum energy performance standards through a commitment to Part L of the Building Regulations.
As a result of his sacking, business leaders have accused the Government of being “all talk and no trousers” over housing policy and the reason for his removal seems weak. Clearly disappointed, he revealed his sacking on Twitter, explaining he had “been asked to step aside from housing for a younger generation… Disappointing, but it’s been a great eleven years as a frontbencher.”
The younger generation - his replacement is actually just a year younger - is actually a euphemism for a cabinet decision to demote the role of Housing Minister from a frontbench to a junior minister role. And what message does that send? And this after giving the housing sector a £3.5bn boost through Help to Buy. It would appear government do not want to close an informed scrutiny of what we get in return from the housebuilders.
Hot on the heels is a report from an All Party Parliamentary Group that attacks the Government for “sending mixed messages about its commitment to the green agenda”. It cites delays to the revised Part L; slow progress on establishing how zero carbon targets for homes can be met; and “unexpected changes to the feed-in-tariffs”.
In its report, ‘Re-energising the green agenda’, the Commission of Inquiry of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in the Built Environment says the Green Deal is failing because it is not “financially attractive” and calls for an urgent review of how such green initiatives are funded and incentivised.
In other words: “Stop tinkering and start showing some leadership!”
The decision to saddle the Green Deal with a 7% interest rate on top of the loan repayments has derailed a generally good idea. It was far from perfect, but the Treasury’s insistence on pandering to the financial lobby means it is stuck on the starting grid.
Prisk was guilty of the cardinal sin of actually understanding issues like this and trying to make progress. Could it be that he was forcing his bosses to face up to some uncomfortable truths about built environment policy – and suddenly his face didn’t fit anymore?