Mr Healey was speaking at a Labour Fringe event entitled "Beyond the recession - housing in the new political era" sponsored by NHBC, Shelter and Compass. The Shadow Housing Minister and contender for the Shadow Cabinet was joined on the panel by Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and Rainham, Kay Boycott, Director of Communications, Policy and Campaigns at Shelter and Imtiaz Farookhi, Chief Executive at NHBC. The meeting was chaired by Neal Lawson of Compass.

Opening the session, the Shadow Minister said that housing highlights clearer than any other policy area that the Government was seeking a different role for itself rather than just a smaller State. This new withdrawn role, Mr Healey argued would ultimately let people down.

Mr Healey took issue with the very premise of the title of the fringe in that it implied the crisis in housing was over. The Shadow Housing Minister stated that the current pressures on housing would result in a crisis in two, three or four years and that Government policies would make the crisis worse.

In the first two weeks of his tenure as Housing Minister, Mr Healey said he had obtained £1.5m for new, affordable, rented homes and this was in the teeth of the recession. In addition to this, Mr Healey listed a series of his other achievements as Housing Minister including more help for first time buyers.

The Labour MP for Wenworth stated that the Labour manifesto had set a direction of travel for housing that should be followed.

Mr Healey claimed that on every front crucial for housing, the Labour government had either made some progress or were committed to do so but since May this was being reversed by the Coalition administration.

Labour by focusing on the nature, speed and depth of cuts were missing the fact that that the Government was washing its hands of responsibility for housing provision and was withdrawing, Mr Healey contended.

The Shadow Housing Minister expected further cut backs by the Government that would impact new build quality and refurbishments.

The Labour party cannot just be clear on what it opposes but also must be clear on what it proposes, Mr Healy asserted. Given the consensus amongst all the leadership contenders that the Labour government had done too little on new affordable rented homes, Mr Healey argued that there was now an opportunity for the party to clearly set-out what it proposes on housing.

Mr Healey claimed that the Coalition did not have a single policy on housing that he considered right for the country.

The Shadow Housing Minister urged the audience to attend a debate on Thursday morning on housing at conference and he welcomed the fact that a single motion had been put forward as this signified the consensus within the party on this subject.

Everyone in this country, Mr Healey maintained, should have the right and expectation to a home that is decent, affordable and secure.

Later in the session Dagenham and Rainham MP, Jon Cruddas addressed the fringe. Mr Cruddas said that all policy roads lead back to housing in that it had a myriad of economic and social consequences.

Mr Cruddas conceded that the regulation of private landlords was a massive issue.

There needed to be a level playing field at local level for social housing provision, Mr Cruddas argued. The Labour MP said that neighbouring boroughs to Barking and Dagenham had pushed people off their housing lists, due to lack of provision, and onto Barking and Dagenham¿s housing list. This situation had an impact on racial and class integration, Mr Cruddas claimed.

Housing was central to the Labour party building a covenant with the people, Mr Cruddas contested, and the Labour MP applauded the John Healey's achievements as Housing Minister.

Earlier at the fringe, the chair Neal Lawson had said that housing should not be left to the vagueries of the market and that there were very apparent tensions between the motivations of those people that wanted to make a profit from housing and those that wanted a roof over their head.

Mr Lawson attacked the Government's insistence of comparing the budget deficit to basic household economics and said that this analogy was worthless given that in the case of housing most people were "mortgaged to the hilt".

Following Mr Lawson's remarks, Shelter Director of Communications, Policy and Communications, Kay Boycott took the floor. Ms Boycott welcomed Ed Miliband's speech on Saturday where he focused heavily on housing. This was the first major political speech that had focused on housing since she had taken on her role at Shelter, Ms Boycott claimed.

Ms Boycott also welcomed the start the previous administration had made through the Decent Homes programme but said that lots of important reviews on housing had not been implemented such as the Barker review.

The range of problems and people facing shelter had changed, Ms Boycott stated. The growth of buy to let, repossessions, land lord repairs, rogue land lords and housing affordability were issues that Shelter were confronting, Ms Boycott said.

The anger over housing affordability and housing speculation would become ever bigger political issues, Ms Boycott predicted. Most surveyed MPs had stated that housing was one of their top three most important issues, Mr Boycott revealed.

Ms Boycott anticipated that thirty-five thousand house-holds would seek local authority support as a consequence of the proposed welfare reforms of the current government. Sixty thousand people were already living in temporary accommodation, Ms Boycott stated, and that this number was likely to rise according to recent research.

Ms Boycott challenged policy makers to face up to the paradox of seeking increases in house prices and affordability for first time buyers. Housing as a government policy area should have equal billing as health and education, Ms Boycott contended.

Following the Shelter representative, Chief Executive of NHBC Imtiaz Farookhi addressed the fringe. Mr Farookhi began by stating that the NHBC raised the standards and reduced the risks in house building. The NHBC did not get everything right but were a transparent organisation, the Chief Executive said.

Mr Farookhi informed the fringe that too few houses were being built and that house building was at a historic low.

Following the recession the house building industry faced economic uncertainty and uncertainty over government cuts that would have an impact on public procurement, Mr Farookhi argued.

"Revolutionary" changes were being made by the Coalition Government in relation to planning, Mr Farookhi stated. The abolition of RDAs, the localism agenda amongst other changes amounted to a considerable number of important drivers for the housing industry, the NHBC Chief Executive said.

Considerable problems such as affordability of housing, reductions in housing benefit and changes to the regulatory environment especially in relation to the zero carbon agenda add greater risk to the industry.

The Government's localism drive was also a risk to the housing industry as it could lead to instability in the housing market, Mr Farookhi said.

The kick-start programme and home buy direct are absolutely critical to maintaining the housing market and for first time buyers, Mr Farookhi asserted.

Skilled construction labour had been shed during the economic downturn and this posed problems for the industry as it now had to build ever more complex houses to higher environmental standards, Mr Farookhi told the fringe.

Joint ventures between the public and private sectors founded on evidence based work would be a good model to increase the rate of house building given the current government financial constraints, Mr Farookhi contended.

The government would worsen some of the major challenges facing the house building industry, Mr Farookhi claimed, if it implemented some of its radical proposals.

Following the panellist speeches, the fringe was opened to the floor for questions. In response to a question John Healey claimed that the new homes bonus would cause chaos in the council tax system and blow out of the water the Government's commitment to freeze council tax.

Mr Healey stated that the terms of the debate over housing needed to be changed to articulate effectively the need for new housing and that perhaps this could be done through outlining the housing needs of young people.

Housing policy, Mr Healey contended, should not be focused on home ownership but should instead focus on decent, affordable, secure housing regardless of whether it is rented or bought.

In response to a question on competition in housing construction, Mr Farookhi said that he agreed there should be greater competition in the market but that small builders were disappearing at faster rate than ever following the recession.

In response to a question on government prioritisation of housing, Ms Boycott argued that the case for a higher priority for housing as a policy area not only had to be made to political parties but also to the Treasury.

Finally the Housing Minister, John Healey stated that housing benefits and housing policy had mistakenly been kept apart by the previous Labour government and that the party had to ensure that this did not occur again as this approach undermined itself.

Speaking at the Conservative Conference event entitled "How can the big society deliver housing?" hosted by the NHBC and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors was:

• Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP, Housing Minister,
  
• John Howell MP,
  
• Imtiaz Farookhi, Chief Executive, NHBC,
  
• Tony Bowron, RICS Member and chair of the Affordable Housing Group
  
• Professor Alan Evans, University of Reading, and
  
• Anne Ashworth, Property Editor, the Times, was in the chair.

The spending review would be really tough but this need not necessarily be bad news for housing, the Housing Minister Grant Shapps insisted. The planning system was broken and the recession offered an important opportunity to amend it, he felt.

The new homes bonus was already in place replacing the regional spatial strategies, Mr Grants told the audience. Local councillors and developers had to make the most of this incentive and bring forward new development plans on this basis, he said.

Outlining the community right to build, the Housing Minister explained that neighbourhood plans would give local people the opportunity to decide how local areas were developed. In 2012 a business increase bonus would be introduced allowing local authorities to keep increases in business rates secured from business expansion, he explained, describing this as the second step in local incentive plans.

Easier planning regulations and reforms to the banking sector to increase access to financing would also help encourage new build and promote new housing, the Minister stated.

Conservative councils had to be entrusted to undertake the challenge of new build, John Howell stated, arguing that effective consultation and engagement would overcome the problem of nimbyism.

The coalition agreement had set a commitment to introduce a new homes bonus thereby providing benefits to local communities for new build, Mr Howell noted. The public must recognise that builders delivered a benefit for local communities but it demanded proper community involvement in order to secure local approval, he said.

The new home incentive was affordable and could be met, Mr Howell insisted, highlighting the benefits of open source planning. The national planning framework would include a presumption toward sustainable development, he told the audience. The Government was moving away from central targets, but would ensure there was a requirement on local authorities to demonstrate robust assessments of local need, he stressed.

If councils refused to accept their responsibility on new housing, developers would drive forward plans effectively forcing councils to respond, Mr Howell suspected. New zoning requirements would provide greater flexibility in land-use agreements, he added.

A range of issues were limit new build including changes to the planning system, regulatory changes including plans for zero-carbon, and reductions in public spending, Imtiaz Farookhi reflected. The big society had to ensure a rebalancing between the state and civil society along with reduced public spending and decentralisation, he argued, noting that the balance of social housing from new build had doubled to 46 per cent during 2008, which had propped up the housing market.

There were models for effective cooperation between the public and private sector, Mr Farookhi insisted, outlining the work of private-public partnerships. Skills in housing sector had to be maintained while efficiency in the present housing stock would be a major challenge, he said.

Getting the balance right between local involvement and incentives would be the critical factor for new housing under the big society, Mr Bowron stated. New build was critical both for homes but also for the jobs market, skills and services, he said. Failing to increase home building would lead to deterioration in the capacity of the housing industry, he warned.

Low income families and first time buyers required help accessing mortgages if home ownership was to become an aspiration, Mr Bowron stressed. He went on to express concerns that the mortgage market was unlikely to improve over the coming years. Moreover, increased unemployment would put more pressure on the rented sector, he added.

The localism agenda could encourage new house building but the incentives might not be adequate or affordable to make it work in crude numbers, Mr Bowron warned, fearing an increase in nimbyism. Certainty and clarity in public spending, localism and the planning system was needed as soon as possible, he stressed.

The proposed incentives to encourage new housing would cost around £1bn a year, Professor Evans warned. Incentives based on new build over a certain figure might be successful but would require the reintroduction for national targets, he observed.

VAT on new housing at 8 per cent would more than cover the housing incentive bonus, Prof Evans suggested, however, he suspected that the Conservatives had opposed this suggestion from the Liberal Democrats.

Incentives based on council tax would disincentivise smaller homes, meanwhile, incentives based on business rates might encourage new business developments rather than housing Prof Evans warned. Plan-led development should be abolished as they were un-responsive to market forces and limited opportunities to increase housing in the short run, he said. The target to reach 60 per cent of building on brownfield sites would be equally implausible, he added.

There was a long way to go in order to decentralise housing powers, Anne Ashworth observed. There were concerns that the proposed housing incentives would not help local developments as most councillors were re-elected for opposing new building, she reflected.

During the question session, members of the audience expressed concerns about access to mortgages. Mr Bowron anticipated that 85-90 per cent mortgages combined with higher interest rates, high arrangement fees and close scrutiny of credit history was preventing first-time buyers from securing mortgages.

Brian Johnson from the Low Carbon Association noted higher requirements set by the Financial Services Authority for shared-ownership mortgages. .

A spokesperson from the Chartered Institute for Housing warned that the FSA¿s mortgage market review would lead to around 14 per cent of people denied a mortgage. The self-employed and first-time buyers would be significantly affected, he feared.

Kate Henderson from the Town and Country Planning Association wondered how the new homes bonus would work for two-tier authorities and areas in decline.

Authorities should not be charged with managing decline, rather they should be given the tools and means to promote economic growth, Mr Shapps replied. Incentives should be directed at planners at the local level though there would be an allocation set for upper-tier authorities which was still under negotiation, he told the audience.

Ruth Reed from the Royal Institute for British Architects suspected larger groupings of local authorities would be needed in order to overcome cross-border

The localism bill would include a statutory duty to consult with neighbours as part of planning proposals, the Housing Minister confirmed. Local enterprise partnerships might also help to overcome this difficulty, he added. The Government's aim was to increase competition between councils to incentivise new developments and to make new housing popular, he explained.