People need new homes. But pumping houses into the economy isn’t the only answer…
“People need new homes. But pumping houses into the economy isn’t the only answer and may be more destructive as an isolated solution than Quantitative Easing will surely prove to be…” Adam Tugwell argues that politicians miss many of the real issues when it comes to housing policy.
Steady Teddy
“I am increasingly convinced that Ed Miliband will be the next Prime Minister. But he is not Red Ed. He is Steady Teddy.” Steve Hilditch is pleased with the housing policy announcements at last week’s Labour Conference.
The bedroom tax: A triumph of framing
“The success of the framing of the Bedroom Tax should give Labour great cheer that it is possible to win seemingly unpopular battles. Applied well and on the right issues we are capable of moving the agenda and the electorate.” Emma Burnell takes heart from Labour’s success in framing the Bedroom Tax as a regressive policy.
Miliband’s housing promises reflect an escalating crisis
“At the very least Miliband’s speech suggests Labour is taking the housing problem seriously. He has grasped that the current suite of policies is inadequate for the task. Something more substantial is required.” Alex Marsh reflects on what Ed Miliband’s speech at Labour Conference means for housing.
Labour to scrap the bedroom tax – a huge political mistake and huge opportunity missed
“The Labour Party has vowed to scrap the bedroom tax. They have finally said it after so long. A cause for celebration you would think but as usual the Labour Party makes a pig’s ear of it.” Joe Halewood questions the Labour Party’s approach to scrapping the bedroom tax.
Housing quality and equality
“It might just be that it is impossible for public investment in social housing to keep up with the Joneses, when the Joneses are so much richer than those on low incomes.” Thomas Neumark examines how hard it is to improve the quality of social housing when society is so unequal.
Is Eric the blot on the landscape?
“So Eric, how about statements promising to tackle the state of some of disrepair and terrible conditions in the worst of our private rented sector, or doing more to end the tragedy of homelessness?” Sheila Spencer challenges Eric Pickles to move on from the great bin crisis and address the real problems in housing today.
Every local council got every bedroom tax decision legally and badly wrong
“Everyone of the 660,000 bedroom tax decisions was legally flawed. Everyone of the 660.000 bedroom tax victims should appeal the decision. EVERY council got the bedroom tax decisions wrong.” Joe Halewood argues that bedroom tax decisions made by local authorities are flawed because they have not taken into consideration room size.
1 million UK working families now NEED to claim housing benefit
“Over a million jobs in Britain are only affordable because housing benefit is claimed or put another way without housing benefit employers in the UK would struggle to fill 1 million jobs.” Joe Halewood of SPeye looks at the recent dramatic rise in the number of working families who are now claiming housing benefit.
Memo to Grant Shapps: we need house price stability. Signed: Grant Shapps
It was a rare moment. Grant Shapps said something with which Red Brick agreed. It was back in January 2011 and Shapps was all over the newspapers and TV news with his views on the housing market, and in particular house prices. Shapps said that Ministers wanted to ‘engineer’ a period of house price stability, using […]
Stamp out regressive property taxes
Normally the Taxpayers’ Alliance website is only worth a visit to raise a smile and to see what people pretending to be on the taxpayers’ side are up to. I say pretend because of course everyone is a taxpayer: those who do not pay income tax pay more regressive taxes like VAT, but the TPA […]
The bedroom tax DHP – the catastrophic and unseen effect on social housing
The myths of the discretionary housing payment, the DHP, has never been fully considered yet it needs to have far more consideration by the tenant, the landlord (social and private) and local councils. To not look at DHPs is a huge mistake for all of these actors or stakeholders. The coalition have been saying to […]
The emerging consensus on private renting
What goes up may come down. Only 10 years ago, the growth of home ownership was believed to be inexorable: people would talk of it reaching 90% of households. But without much advance warning, it peaked in 2003 and has fallen from 71% of households then to 65% now (figures for England). Virtually all net housing growth […]
More home ownership is progressive
This post also appeared on Progress Online. Labour has gone big on helping private renters in recent months. And we’re right to. With ever more people forced to rent from private landlords, including 1 million families, we need to improve standards and give people greater security in their home. However, we should remember that ‘Generation Rent’ still aspires to […]
The Under Occupation Regulations, aka the Bedroom Tax, may result in perfectly good homes being demolished
Housing, it’s a funny old thing. And successive governments have struggled to come up with coherent strategies to deal with the challenges. It all began going horribly wrong with: a fundamental shift in the 1980s away from capital investment, replacing it with increasing revenue support, resulting in the spiraling cost of housing benefit (I have blogged […]
The urgent need to regulate letting agencies
Lord Myners, the former city minister, used to quote Hunter S Thompson: “Banking is a shallow money trench, where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. It also has is negative side”. While I might not be so damning in my assessment of letting agencies, I have for a long time […]
How to get rid of the bedroom tax overnight
The bedroom tax according to the coalition is treating the social tenant the same as the private tenant for housing benefit purposes. So let’s do precisely that and abracadabra the bedroom tax is history! To explain: social landlords simply rent their social properties through their private arms and their private companies as landlords and this […]
Rent is the new grant
At the CIH Conference last week, Housing Minister Mark Prisk said that the new funding settlement for housing would involve ‘something for something’. To get a small slice of the increasingly tiny Government subsidy for new rented homes, providers will have to make a bigger contribution from ‘their’ own resources. Government has been in confusion […]
Diary of a squatter
The following is based on true events, though written before the changes to squatting law in September 2012. ‘And with some conviction he orders my eviction.’ Part 1: Living in an old hostel that’s been empty for two years, planning permission approved but no funding found. This empty old hostel is now housing at least […]
Labour’s pledge for minimum housing standards in private rented sector
Summary The devils will be in the delivery, which is why the policy detail must be spot on. Earlier today, Labour’s shadow housing minister Jack Dromey announced that a future Labour Government would implement the decent homes standard to the private rented sector. Which sounds great but is far easier said than done. Housing policy by its very […]