Housing: creative solutions

  Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement on 26th March is poised to be a defining moment. We stand at a crossroads, with stark choices before us. The Chancellor must resist the siren song of austerity and instead embrace a bold vision of investment, especially in housing, and safeguard the vital safety net of welfare. The idea that we can achieve economic growth by slashing benefits and public spending is not just misguided, it’s downright dangerous. It’s a cruel delusion to think that we can starve the very people who need support the most and somehow expect the economy to flourish. Cutting wages and benefits for the poor, the old, the sick, and the disabled is not just morally reprehensible, it’s economically illiterate. It will only deepen inequality and stifle any hope of real progress. Instead of these shortsighted cuts, Reeves must prioritise investment in social housing. A decent home is not a luxury; it’s a fundamental human right. Building more social housing will not only provid...

  It’s time for an informed debate on rent controls.  The laissez-faire, competitive market approach in the privately rented sector has demonstrably failed - as average private rents in Britain have climbed to record highs, renters are suffering and excessively high rents create a drain on the economy. Property website Rightmove has said that in May this year, the typical advertised rent outside London reached a record £1,316 a calendar month. In London it was £2,652 a month – almost three times the £894 asked for in north-east England. Rightmove said the average advertised rent outside London in May was an inflation-busting 7% higher than a year earlier. This leads those in the property industry with a vested interest to argue for an increase in supply. But it’s economically illiterate to believe that simply adding more privately rented housing will bring rents down. We need to look seriously at rent controls. Rent control policies vary widely across European countries, with ...

  Queues for first council housing in 30 years in Minehead. Courtesy BBC 19th June 2024 There's no doubt that it’s the impact of austerity measures implemented by the Conservative Government since 2010 that have disproportionately affected the most vulnerable, exacerbating inequality and poverty. Key areas impacted include public services, welfare benefits, and job security. Austerity has led to increased reliance on food banks, higher levels of debt, and greater mental health issues. And since the First World War the wealth gap has never been so wide. Policy changes are desperately needed to prioritise social protection and equitable economic recovery.

October 2023 and the City of London sees the removal of the cap on bankers' bonuses - a few will now start to receive their Brexit Bonus. Yet this post-EU policy shift stands in stark contrast to the continued squeeze on low-income families through the Benefits Cap. While both measures involve limitations on income, they paint a worrying picture of a widening economic chasm. Proponents of the Bonus Cap lift cheer the return of London's financial clout. They argue that rainmakers deserve their golden parachutes, attracting talent and boosting the sector's competitiveness. But critics warn of a return to the casino culture that fuelled the 2008 financial crisis. Unfettered bonuses, they fear, could incentivise reckless risk-taking, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the next meltdown. Meanwhile, those on the breadline face a different kind of squeeze. The Benefits Cap, in place for a decade and applied to just under half a million households, has had a devastating effect . ...

  8 facts you need to know about welfare reform This blog is simple. It gives facts that contradict commonly held and repeated views. It debunks the myths that we hear regularly. Print it out and keep it near you. MYTH 1. Keeping the rise in benefits to only 1% is fair because it hits shirkers, not workers. Fact: 60% of the reduction falls on in-work households. Why? Because the 1% rise - which equates to a real-terms cut - affects universal benefits like child benefit and tax credits like child tax credit. MYTH 2. Spending on benefits for those out of work is out of control. Fact: the majority of all welfare spending is on pensioners - 53%. Also, benefits for those out of work is less than a quarter of the total welfare budget. Second, on average, between 2000 and 2010, welfare spending grew annually, in real terms, by only 1.75% - compared to 5.5% in the 1950s and 1960s, and 3% in the 1980s. Third, benefit spending in 2011-12 accounted for 10.4% of GDP, lower than the mid-80s ...

Housing policy has travelled a long way from post war Britain. The modern approach was described by Housing Minister, Aneurin Bevan. When announcing major investment in building social housing he said he wanted to see places, “ ...where the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the farm labourer all lived in the same street. I believe that is essential for the full life of a citizen... to see the living tapestry of a mixed community.” Today, housing policy has regained its Victorian ethos; a tool used to divide. A scalpel is being applied to the ligaments that bind community. Where there is harmony, they bring discord. The gap between the haves and the have nots, the deserving and the undeserving poor, is growing wider. For individuals, that divide is increasingly difficult to breach.   Remember 2016. It is not just the year that for the first time the state permanently stopped subsidising the building of social rented housing, it is also the year that the undeserving were chased out...

Published in Inside Housing: https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/this-ole-house-42273  

As we approach the anniversary of the introduction of the bedroom tax, its’ impact is becoming clearer. DWP figures to November 2013 show that the HB reduction has been applied to 498,174 households and each has lost on average, £14.40 per week. With increases likely as families move into the higher priced private sector, the reduction in HB is likely to be £150m short of the recently claimed £490m. Let’s remind ourselves of the core argument. Speaking in the Lords on its introduction, Lord Freud said, “We do not think that taxpayers should be expected to meet the cost of somewhere approaching 1 million spare bedrooms, a cost of around £0.5 billion every year...”   So, what else could be done to make up this shortfall? How else could households be incentivised not to hold spare rooms? In the interests of fairness, what else could be done? After all, as an exercise in using fiscal policy to influence behaviour change, the spare room subsidy has been pretty successful. It has opened ...