Dame Kate Barker has said that most indicators of housing market health are worse today than they were 20 years ago and that the supply of new social rent homes has fallen. 

In her letter to Matthew Pennycook MP, the new housing minister, Barker recommends that the government reinstate the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit “as soon as possible” to create a more robust approach to mandatory housing targets.

Barker’s memo to the government says that “despite strong support for her original report, a recent review by the Home Builders Federation (HBF) found that only eleven of its 36 recommendations are currently in place.”