Dromey calls Shapps’ statistics ‘deliberately misleading’

Housing minister Grant Shapps has consistently misrepresented and misused housing statistics, an open letter from shadow housing secretary Jack Dromey has said.

Writing to the chair of UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) Andrew Dilnot, Dromey suggested that figures used by Shapps in reference to the provision of homes between May 1997 and 2010 incorrectly suggested that there was ‘both 45,000 and 200,000 fewer homes’ under the Labour Government.

The letter from Dromey asserted that there was also ‘no way to verify’ that 100,000 homes will have been built by 2015 as a result of right to buy, as Shapps has claimed.

Alongside this, Dromey said that Shapps incorrectly numbered affordable houses built between May 1997 and April 2010 and contradicted official Government statistics.

The shadow housing minister suggested Shapps confused statistics relating to rough sleeping in a ‘completely inappropriate’ fashion, and ‘clearly affected the public debate’ that followed by highlighting the amount of non-UK nationals that contributed to the figures.

Dromey described the figure Shapps’ attached to the number of houses built in England as ‘deliberately and profoundly misleading’, claiming that the current use of timeframes for official statistics and the suggested cost for self-build properties were both inappropriate and misleading.

In declining previous proposals for the UKSA to assess the statistics produced by the Homes and Communities Agency and the Tenant Services Authority, the minister rejected proposals ‘to bring about a clearer and more systematic public presentation of all the relevant statistical material’ Dromey said.