Cllr Pritchard Has Ruined a Perfectly Good Story

I asked Birmingham’s Deputy Leader an awkward housing question, got the silence I had anticipated by my deadline, wrote accordingly, and then the fellow replied. Worse still, he made a decent case.

There is a small truth about journalism which perhaps ought to remain inside the trade. If I am going to criticise somebody, I regard it as compulsory to put the difficult questions to them first. There are always at least two sides to a story, sometimes considerably more, and anybody can look terribly clever if the person they are writing about has never been given the chance to explain themselves. Sometimes you spend hours researching a piece, send off the questions, set a reasonable deadline and anticipate that silence may follow. In Cllr Julien Pritchard’s case, that is exactly what happened. The deadline came and went, no answer arrived, and I wrote accordingly. I had some fun wondering whether becoming Leader of Birmingham’s Green Group and Deputy Leader of the Council had somehow interfered with his previously reliable email connection. Then the fellow replied.

And here is the irritating bit. He replied properly. No officer generated mush. No polished paragraph thanking me for my interest before answering a question I had not asked. Cllr Pritchard says his desire for more social housing has not changed, nor has his view that the planning system is too heavily tilted towards developers. Indeed, he argues that Labour Government changes will tilt it further still. His explanation for Birmingham’s new affordable housing approach is practical. A Local Plan has to survive examination, and in his judgement higher targets would be unlikely to get past the Planning Inspector in the present national planning environment. His strongest point is this: Birmingham’s old 35 per cent affordable housing target was, he says, “a target in name only” because very few, if any, developments actually reached it. His hope is that the new figures, lower in some areas, will actually be delivered.

That rather spoils the easy U turn story. A magnificent target in a policy document is not terribly useful if almost nobody delivers it. If Cllr Pritchard is right that a lower but realistic figure produces more affordable homes in bricks, mortar and front doors, there is a serious argument to be had. I am not signing every page of his defence. A lower target can become a comfortable ceiling and the word viability still makes me wonder which developer’s accountant is waiting outside. But this is now an argument about outcomes, not evidence that Cllr Pritchard simply forgot everything he believed before acquiring a grander title. Do more genuinely affordable homes actually get built, or do we merely end up admiring a smaller number in a newer document?

His answer on Druids Heath deserves more weight too. A Local Plan covering future development across Birmingham is not the same thing as regenerating an existing social housing community. On most new sites whatever affordable housing is secured is additional. Druids Heath is different because people already live there, overwhelmingly in social housing, and regeneration can remove homes, disperse communities and price people out unless replacement is properly secured. Cllr Pritchard says he will continue pushing for the maximum social housing there and making sure nobody is priced out. That distinction does not magic away every question about viability, but it is real and I am happy to acknowledge it. He also points out that the emerging plan contains a specific social housing target within the wider affordable housing target, something that was not there before. Good. “Affordable” is one of those wonderfully elastic political words which can stretch until the person supposedly being helped still cannot afford the home in question. Social rent is rather less elastic.

Cllr Nicky Brennan deserves more than a passing mention. As Labour Group Leader and a former Cabinet Member for Housing, she could easily have gone for the cheap headline and shouted U turn. She did not. Her response acknowledged that housing is full of difficult choices and that anybody who has held the portfolio understands the tension between demanding affordable homes and getting developments built. Her challenge was much more useful. Cllr Pritchard had previously been very clear that viability must not become an excuse for fewer affordable homes, so what had changed? That was a fair question, intelligently put, and it produced a proper answer. I think Cllr Brennan is leading her group well because there is a practical streak to her opposition. She does not have to pretend every decision made by the new administration is idiotic to expose where an explanation is required. On this occasion she asked for one. Cllr Pritchard supplied it.

The especially entertaining bit is that his answer sends the argument straight back across Victoria Square and on towards Westminster. Cllr Pritchard’s position is essentially this: I have not changed, the planning system is the problem, and Labour nationally is making it worse. So Cllr Brennan has extracted the answer she was entitled to seek, but has also acquired another question for her own side. That seems to me a healthy state of affairs. We have a Green Deputy Leader saying the national system restrains what Birmingham can demand, and a Labour opposition leader with every right to test that claim while also looking towards a government of her own political colour. Much more interesting than shouting hypocrisy and going home.

So where does that leave my lovely little story about Cllr Pritchard disappearing into the ivory tower? In some difficulty. I asked the hard question because fairness required it, received the silence I had anticipated by the deadline and wrote accordingly. Then his answer arrived and required me to think again. That is not an inconvenience journalism should resent. It is the point of asking in the first place. Cllr Brennan asked the right question. Cllr Pritchard, albeit late, gave a decent answer. I remain perfectly capable of arguing with parts of it, but his reply rather vindicates my instinct that beneath the new titles and responsibilities there remains a good local politician worth listening to.

Still ruined a perfectly good story, though.