Steve Reed appointed Labour Housing Minister: Can the former Lambeth Leader deliver on 1.5 million new homes?

Steve Reed, MP for Streatham and Croydon North, and former Leader of Lambeth Council, has been appointed Labour’s new Housing Minister.

This promotion comes after 14 months as Environment Secretary – a post Reed, a lifelong city-dweller, has always appeared somewhat uncomfortable with.

The new role follows the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister and former Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, who admitted failing to pay enough tax on her second home.

Reed now faces a monumental challenge: delivering on Labour’s pledge to build 1.5 million new homes ahead of the next general election.

While he has avoided immediate crises such as the potential collapse and bailout of Thames Water and pissing off every farmer in the land, the housing portfolio presents him with a far more daunting test of skill, ambition, and accountability.

Reed’s record on housing starts at the local level, where he served as Leader of Lambeth Council from 2006 to 2012. One of his signature initiatives was Lambeth Living, an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) established in April 2008 to manage and improve over 33,000 council homes.

The initiative was designed to access additional government funding for the Decent Homes Programme, upgrading kitchens, bathrooms, heating systems, and communal areas while aiming to improve service delivery to tenants and leaseholders.

In 2010, Reed appointed Keith Hill, former Streatham MP and ex-Minister for Housing and Planning, as Chair of Lambeth Living. Hill’s appointment drew criticism: Reed had promised that a council tenant would take the role, but instead handed it to a Labour Party pal, a move seen by some as cronyism.

Despite initial progress in securing funding and implementing basic housing improvements, Lambeth Living struggled. Financial overspends and criticisms over service delivery mounted.

Reed famously issued the “shape up or ship out” challenge – a pattern familiar from his leadership style: outsource services, criticise them when they fail, and avoid scrutiny when results weren’t directly attributable to him.

How’s that one going?

The decision was taken by Reed’s Office Boy at the time, Cllr Matthew Bennett, who was doubling up as the Lambeth Cabinet Member for Housing.

The formal handover occurred in June 2015. On closure, Lambeth Living reported an overspend of £767,000 and a trading loss of £575,000.

Some residents acknowledged that the ALMO had achieved modest successes, such as accessing funding and improving service delivery, but for many, the organisation represented a cautionary tale in bureaucratic mismanagement.

But the ALMO wasn’t all about delivering new homes. In 2010, while serving as Leader of Lambeth Council, Reed orchestrated a covert operation aimed at discrediting Councillor Kingsley Abrams, a fellow Labour party member.

Reed, seeking to undermine Abrams, set up a deceptive email, falsely claimed that the Head of Lambeth Living was about to resign – something that had been fabricated by Reed.

Reed’s intent was to provoke Abrams into leaking the fabricated information to the press, thereby exposing him as a party insider willing to divulge confidential matters.

Reed even went as far as asking apolitical council officers to ‘monitor’ the Lambeth email address of Abrams, to see who he might leak the false information to.

However, the plan backfired. Instead of falling into the trap, Councillor Abrams alerted his colleague, MP Kate Hoey, about the deceitful tactics employed by Reed.

The revelation of Reed’s underhanded strategy not only embarrassed him but also cast a shadow over his leadership style, raising questions about his ethical standards and the lengths he would go to in settling political scores.

Reed also initiated Lambeth’s estate regeneration programme, aiming to redevelop underused estates, such as Cressingham Gardens, to provide more homes, particularly at council rent levels, and modernise the borough’s housing stock.

You could call it Lambeth Living rebranded.

He also co-chaired the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea (VNEB) Regeneration Board, which coordinated plans for one of Europe’s largest urban redevelopment schemes, promising 16,000 new homes, 500,000 square meters of commercial space, and 27,000 new jobs.

Yet the record of delivery remains mixed. The VNEB project aimed to deliver up to 20,000 new homes, but as of April 2024, only 6,685 homes had been completed, with 4,960 under construction and 462 awaiting planning consent.

Affordable housing provision has been minimal: only 560 of 3,444 homes at Battersea Power Station are designated as affordable.

Many luxury apartments remain unoccupied, catering primarily to foreign investors, highlighting the gulf between promises of housing for Londoners and the realities of globalised property speculation.

Reed’s involvement in VNEB reflects both ambition and the limits of execution. While co-chairing a project promising tens of thousands of homes and new jobs, actual outcomes lagged behind.

Reed’s estate regeneration plans sparked controversy. Residents and activists opposed schemes like Cressingham Gardens, fearing displacement and loss of community.

Even with Reed’s successor, Lib Peck, continuing the regeneration programme after 2012, tangible results have been slow.

Thirteen years after the programme began, the benefits remain limited, a fact that will shadow Reed as he scales up housing delivery to a national level.

Homes for Lambeth (HfL), an arms-length housing company, was set up in 2018 to oversee estate redevelopment, including Central Hill, Cressingham Gardens, and Fenwick. HfL aimed to deliver new council homes and address housing shortages, but the project is widely regarded as a failure.

The Kerslake Review branded HfL’s performance “very poor,” citing weak governance, poor contract management, and significant missteps—such as spending nearly £1 million on WeWork Waterloo offices while adjacent offices sat empty.

The council ultimately dissolved HfL in 2023, leaving more than 100 tenants facing eviction.

Between 2018–2022, Lambeth Council itself built just four council homes, far short of the 1,000 promised in the Lambeth Labour manifesto.

For a minister now tasked with overseeing housing delivery across England. Reed’s task is formidable: deliver 1.5 million new homes ahead of the next general election, while ensuring affordability, accessibility, and genuine occupancy.

His record shows an ability to initiate ambitious projects, secure funding, and navigate bureaucracy – but also a recurring pattern of slow delivery, cost overruns, and controversies over governance and accountability.

The shadow of Lambeth Living, Homes for Lambeth, and slow-moving VNEB projects looms large.

For residents across England, the question is simple: can Reed scale up his Lambeth experience without repeating the mistakes of the past – or will his tenure become another lesson in ambition overtaken by reality?

We hope that he gets to keep his £420 wellies, a donation by Labour Peer Lord Alli, to help Reed out on all those uncomfortable trips to the countryside that he will now miss.