Former housing minister Eddie Hughes takes to the podium as a headline speaker at next year’s Housing Innovation Show, where he’s bound to have plenty to say
Eddie Hughes was one of those rare ministers who came to his brief already familiar with the housing sector’s myriad challenges and expectations; he remains very much active in the sector to this day.
Before becoming a Member of Parliament in June 2017 – representing the Walsall North constituency until May 2024 – he served in a number of roles in the sector.
Among them, he was director of development and asset management for YMCA Birmingham from 2014 to 2017. Between 2012 and 2016, he was on the board of housing association WHG. Then from 2016 until 2018, he served as the social landlord’s chair.
In government, of course, he served as housing and homelessness minister between 2021 and 2022 in what was then the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, to name but one of his roles. Even as a backbench MP, however, he kept a hand in matters housing.
“It’s felt like there’s a nice housing thread running through all the work that I’ve done; it’s basically the experience of sitting both sides of the table,” he says.
On the operational side of that table, he’s gained an understanding of the challenges that people working in the sector have on a day-to-day basis; then sitting on the policy side that shapes and influences government policy nationally.
“Hopefully, the fact that I had those years experience and understood the kind of hands-on approach helped inform and improve my approach to policy formation,” he adds.
Broad church
Since leaving Parliament, Hughes has continued to engage with the sector, establishing his own consultancy, and is working with the Church of England to help identify parcels of its land that are suitable for the provision of affordable housing.
Alongside his work with the church, Hughes also serves on the board of the Housing Network, and is a housing policy consultant for the National Federation of Builders.
“The Housing Network is the biggest provider of accommodation for the Ministry of Justice, [catering] for people who would otherwise be discharged from prison homeless,” Hughes explains. “The intention is to build the business, and so I’m one of three advisory board members who are helping them [deliver] that growth in a sustainable way.”
Next year, of course, Hughes is bringing his rounded perspective to the Housing Innovation Show in Birmingham, where he’ll take to the podium as a headline speaker. It’s clear he’ll have a lot to say – but no spoilers.
Obviously, as one of those headline speakers, Hughes is bringing something to the show, in the form of his insights and experience, but on the flipside, what is he hoping to get out of it?
“I don’t know,” he says, laughing. “And that’s the beauty of it.”
As he himself concedes, it sounds like a “funny answer”; some may even feel it’s a bit of a dud one, too. But Hughes follows through, adding zest that goes to the heart of the Housing Innovation Show’s premise and purpose.
“The beauty of going to the show will be to find out what you don’t know,” he adds. “I imagine there are people doing some really creative and innovative stuff out there, small scale, just piloting, testing, and that will be an opportunity to understand where the cutting edge stuff is being done within the sector.
“But there’s also the opportunity to get together with like-minded people who are interested in a creative and innovative approach to solving problems.”
He went on to say: “There is so much pressure on the sector at the moment with regard to damp and mould, building safety, net zero – people are just focused on getting the day job done while keeping their tenants happy.
“Sometimes they don’t have a chance to look up from their desk out to the horizon, and see what solutions might be coming down the line. So I think it will be fulfilling to be spending time with people who are taking a more creative approach.”
Exciting times
That sense of curiosity, anticipation, and enthusiasm for sharing knowledge and learning goes to the very heart of what the show is about. And with so much going on across the sector, there’s undoubtedly a great deal to talk about.
“It feels to me there is a lot of opportunity for innovation to come into the housing sector, and a lot of it that’s already happening,” Hughes says. “So I’m hoping there are exciting things ahead.”
By way of example, he refers to the use of smart sensors in people’s homes to monitor environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity, to gain an early warning against the threat of damp and mould, or to highlight a household that’s in fuel poverty, and so enable earlier interventions to help alleviate the problems.
Another area of technological innovation he is keen to see explored, is the potential for new technology – particularly AI – to help speed up the Gateway process required under the Building Safety Act. The same might be said of how it can speed up and streamline the planning process, so that housing schemes can be approved and get underway sooner rather than later.
“I’m a firm believer in the idea that one of the things we can do is make sure that the planning process is really fast, particularly for the more simple applications,” Hughes says.
“The reason this is particularly important to me is because in this country we have a relatively small number of very big house builders building the bulk of our housing output, and our SME builder area has been decimated; not least because it is expensive and uncertain in terms of your ability to secure planning permission.”
If the process could be automated to assess applications against national and local planning and design rules, he argues, then not only could schemes be approved faster, it would free up resources to focus on more complicated and involved applications – and take out some of the risks for SME builders, encouraging more of them to come forward.
Hammering home
Hughes is clearly enthusiastic about the potential for innovation and technology to make a difference in the sector’s work, but that doesn’t mean he lacks some healthy scepticism.
“My worry is that old expression that if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” he says.
“What I’m worried about is trying to deploy technologies – not least AI – because we’ve got them, and they’re fancy, and we’re excited about the way they work, [so] that we try to deploy them in ways that aren’t necessarily always appropriate.
“Most importantly, what we need to do is never lose sight of the fact that tenant satisfaction and safety should be our number one priority. Sometimes, I think, perhaps in the pursuit of saving money, you might follow a line of activity which is actually efficient and money-saving, but not necessarily in the best interests of the tenants.
“So that’s my worry, to make sure that what we do isn’t seen in any way as experimenting with new technology on the poorest people in society.”
A salient and thought-provoking note on which to end, for sure, but – again – finding the right balance between technology, and the all-important human element, is a critical part of the show.
Image credit: ICC photo courtesy of Nick Stafford/Pixabay
The Housing Innovation Show takes place at the ICC in Birmingham on 4-5 February 2026
To find out more, or to register your place, visit the Housing Innovation Show website
Read next: Housing Innovation Show 2026: The future is taking shape
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