Prime Minister Burnham has taken office, promising to make politics work and announcing that his first instruction will be to “end rough sleeping” in the UK.
Richard Beresford, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB) said: “The new PM’s speech was on the money and the NFB wholeheartedly backs his plans for reindustrialisation, more council housing, using public procurement to back British industry and ending rough sleeping.
Construction will be integral in achieving his ambitions and we hope to see a repetition of the Northwest procurement process where regional players training, retaining and investing locally are understood as key to a strong region and healthy community.”
The PM promised a “circuit breaker” to ‘restore hope’ to Britain and deliver a ten-year plan to rebuild the nation. While he will not be revealing this plan in full until later this year, he highlighted key features such as the use of public procurement, a wide nationalisation programme, a council house building programme, education reform and devolution of power from Downing Street to local communities.
On Tuesday, 21 July 2026, he will announce a costed set of policies to immediately help people with the cost of living.
Rico Wojtuleiwcz, Director of Policy and Market Insight, said: “The success of Greater Manchester examples the pragmatism that has made the region so attractive to global investors, regional migration and organic growth. We hope that this pragmatism also extends into addressing the housing crisis, particularly as PM Burnham historically praised Finland’s Housing First model as key to ending rough sleeping.
What many do not discuss is that most of Finland’s Housing First funding is spent on low interest rate, government backed loans for homebuyers and builders. Should their successful strategy be replicated in the UK, we would see a new Help to Buy variant with broader reach. We would also see the UK’s broken affordable housing model replaced, in favour of institutions and the market delivering low rent housing for fixed periods, for example 25 years. This is the pragmatism and circuit breaker the UK housing crisis desperately needs.”
