Steve Reed will probably feel more at home at MHCLG, but is the former leader of Lambeth Council, who as an MP was a bystander over ‘slum-like’ conditions at Regina Road and the bankrupting of Croydon, up to the job of delivering on housing targets and local government finances?
By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
Homecoming: Steve Reed will be required to deliver on some demanding house-building targets – something he has never managed before
The government’s intervention in Croydon Council’s £1.4billion toxic debt has now been placed in the hands of a Croydon MP, after Steve Reed was last night named as the new Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North when he can be bothered), has been moved sideways from DEFRA in Keir Starmer’s emergency cabinet reshuffle prompted by the resignation of his deputy PM, Angela Rayner.
It was on Rayner’s orders in July that government Commissioners were sent into Croydon to get to grips with the council’s “runaway” spending under failed Tory Mayor Jason Perry.
Perry was allowed to bleat “No fair!” on local television news again this week, like a spoilt brat who has dropped his ice cream cone. The man who was elected in 2022 on a promise to “Fix the finances” failed to mention to BBC London last year’s £30million budget overspend, his £136million bail-out from government earlier this year or his 27% hike in Council Tax all on his watch.
Croydon has been building up its debt mountain for almost 20 years, including more than £800million accrued by a previous Conservative administration, when Perry was a cabinet member in charge of “planning, transport and sustainability” and throwing money at John Laing for the disastrous CCURV joint venture under which the council offices, Fisher’s Folly, were built.
‘No fair!’: failed Mayor Perry has been bleating like a spoiled brat
Today, Perry’s only solution to cash-strapped Croydon’s debt problem is an unprecedented write-off of at least some of the local authority’s liabilities that he had do so much to create.
Last night, on the announcement of Reed’s move to MHCLG, the part-time Mayor tweeted:
“Congratulations to [Steve Reed MP] on his appointment as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
“Steve knows all too well the challenges local government, London and Croydon faces. I hope we can work together in the interests of our borough to support the residents we both serve.”
Perry went to much greater lengths to grovel to the Establishment over the death of the Duchess of Kent (Who she? Ed): “Her quiet dignity and lifelong service, particularly through her work in music and education, have left a lasting legacy across the country,” apparently…
With lame duck Mayor Perry’s term of office rapidly running out of road, perhaps the plastic guttering salesman is after a lucrative contract for Buck House, or some kind of gong for “services to local government” after next May’s Town Hall elections?
One thing to emerge from Perry’s latest appearance on BBC London was the notion that the appointment of Commissioners in Croydon was in some way “politically motivated”. Clearly, Perry is some kind of genius…
Congratulations: but the Tory Mayor can hardly expect a Labour minister to bail him out months before local elections
Perhaps of more relevance to most of Croydon’s hard-pressed residents was the message to Reed from one of Croydon Tories’ young bucks, Councillor Alasdair Stewart, who posted: “Congratulations to Steve Reed MP – MP for Streatham and Croydon North, and formerly MP for Croydon North 2012-2024 – on his appointment as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
“This is a hugely important government role for Croydon, and with his first-hand knowledge and experience of Croydon Council’s past problems, I look forward to Steve working with Mayor Jason Perry to finally deliver the long overdue financial support that Croydon Council needs to resolve the legacy of toxic debt, and most importantly treating Croydon Council fairly compared to other local authorities, which we sadly didn’t see under Angela Rayner.”
There’s some subtle messaging here, linking Reed to his long-time political mate and the bankrupter of the borough, the discredited Tony Newman, Croydon’s council leader from 2014 to 2020, as well as presenting some valid argument over funding Croydon fairly.
Thing is, in almost 13 years as MP for parts of Croydon, Steve Reed has barely made a peep about the disparities in funding between this borough and the one where he was council leader for six years until 2012.
Reed is, of course, part of the Brixton Town Hall chumocracy which, following Rayner’s political tumble, has taken an even tighter grip on power in Downing Street through his former Lambeth council colleague, Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s Chief of Staff.
As a co-founder first of Progress, then of Labour First, the parties-within-a-party, Reed has become a feared figure in Labour circles, through his and his colleagues’ sense of entitlement and the manner that they sometimes conduct themselves, almost as if they are above the law.
Old pals’ act: Joel ‘Bodger’ Bodmer had to abandon his hopes of joining Reed in the House of Commons
Such as the time when Reed was in charge in Lambeth and he got council staff to spy on the emails of colleague councillors, or his association with Joel Bodmer, the candidate who stood down from Croydon East parliamentary selection when the police were called in to complaints over data abuse, and then there was Reed’s knowledge of the illegal hack committed against this website in 2021.
The move to head the local government and housing department will undoubtedly suit 61-year-old “townie” Reed, who accepted an OBE in 2013 for that most nebulous of citations, “services to local government”.
The repeated challenges to his decisions on agriculture and the water industry, from Jeremy Clarkson and the farming lobby and Feargal Sharkey and environmentalists, during his year as Environment Secretary left Reed appearing sorely out of his depth. Look out on eBay for a bargain buy of “pair of size 9 Hunter-style wellies, as new, worn just once”, as he tries to unload the now redundant gift from Labour Peer Lord Alli.
Reed is now part of the churn at the upper echelons of government. He is by some counts the 15th minister in charge of housing in little more than 12 years (Gavin Barwell, another Croydon MP, was the fourth in that long list of failures, from 2016 to 2017, at the time of the Grenfell Tower disaster). That drift in leadership is indicative of the systemic problems with the crisis in that sector.
That Reed was the MP for the area where council flats at Regina Road and their appalling, “slum-like conditions” came to light, demonstrating the poor management at the council run by his mates Tony Newman and Alison Butler and his own ineffectualness as a parliamentary representative, will do nothing to inspire confidence in his abilities as a cabinet minister.
‘Slum-like’ squalor: until more recent boundary changes, residents in flats on Regina Road were in Reed’s Croydon North constituency
Nor will his legacy on housing as council leader in Lambeth, which has been subject to repeated warnings and penalties from independent agencies.
As Brixton Buzz has reported today, “One of his signature initiatives was Lambeth Living, an Arms Length Management Organisation… established in April 2008 to manage and improve over 33,000 council homes…
“Despite initial progress in securing funding and implementing basic housing improvements, Lambeth Living struggled. Financial overspends and criticisms over service delivery mounted.”
By October 2014 (two years after Reed had entered Parliament as the Member for Croydon North), Lambeth Council announced plans to disband its ALMO, “citing the need for better value for money and more direct control over housing services”.
“On closure,” Brixton Buzz says, “Lambeth Living reported an overspend of £767,000 and a trading loss of £575,000.” Oh…
Reed backed: Jo Negrini came to Croydon with impressive references
And to think that Reed supported the appointment in Croydon of former Lambeth employee Jo Negrini, the “mastermind” behind Brick by Brick, the failed housing company that did so much to bankrupt the council.
Reed was also the co-chair of the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Regeneration Board, which coordinated plans for one of Europe’s largest urban redevelopment schemes, promising 16,000 new homes, 500,000 sqm of commercial space and 27,000 jobs.
As at April 2024, only 6,685 homes had been completed, with 4,960 under construction and 462 awaiting planning permission. Affordable housing provision has been minimal: only 560 of 3,444 homes at Battersea Power Station are “affordable”.
Housing experts, such as Peter Apps, from InsideHousing, are certainly wary. “I expect Rayner’s replacement to be hit with pretty ferocious lobbying to remove or reduce post-Grenfell reforms to ‘get Britain building’,” Apps said last night.
“The Building Safety Regulator is very necessary. Anyone who doesn’t think so should go have a look at the standard of construction on 2010s blocks, or better yet, live in one.”
Given Reed’s craven capitulation to the water monopolies when he was Environment Secretary, Apps probably has good cause for concern.
As might all Croydon residents: will the MP who was a bystander as his constituents lived in squalor on Regina Road, and who did nothing while his political friends bankrupted the borough, now step in to put things right?
Or might that be too close to an admission of culpability by Reed?
More Reed: Minister Reed attended unminuted meetings with water bosses
Read more: ‘I don’t think it’s helpful you ask questions like this’ says MP Reed
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
More Reed: You can take Steve Reed to water, but you can’t make him think
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Isn’t this a demotion rather than a sideways move from the highly prominent role at Environment to a more restricted brief at Housing and Local Government. It doesn’t matter to Reed though. He has been a massive disappointment and failure at the Environment Department and he can do it all over again not delivering enough affordable housing and bodging Council finances. A man whose whole career has been about receiving rewards for failing to deliver.
MHCLG has a bigger budget and more responsibilities (and perhaps more intractable problems) than Environment so more of a small promotion.
If Perry thinks this appointment will help Croydon and its finance he has another thing coming.
Civil Servants will divert any specific Croydon issues to another Minister to deal with and decide upon rather than Reed if that particular decision is one for the SoS to make. The Civil Service is very good at doing that.
Reed has recused himself from anything to do with Croydon his entire parliamentary career. Why change the habits of a lifetime..?
Reed never did anything regarding Croydons Social Housing Crisis, he neglected to represent Regina Road residents and even prior to that he failed to represent or meet with the 5 families being moved from Council Housing in Wooderson Close as the Labour Administration agreed to the sale for demolition by CPFC to build the New Stand. From 2018 to date all he did was get wined and dined by the clubs lobbyists and accept hospitality packages to attend matches. As he has shown with Environment he will be clearly out of his depth!
Which explains why I never recieved replies to two letters sent to him while humble MP.
You are not alone, James.
Although “humble” is not is not a word usually associated with Reed.
Or any MP of any party. A bit of humility, some admission of mistakes or deafness to our concerns would make all the difference