Best frontline blogs this week
Here’s our list of ten frontline blogs we’ve particularly liked from the week of 28th October 2013 – from unqualified teachers to housing, disability policy and mental health.
Off target
“Labour’s headline housing policy is the pledge to build 200,000 homes per year. This policy suffers from being both not particularly popular and not being particularly right. It is also not particularly new.” Thomas Neumark looks at why Labour needs a new vision for housing policy.
The bedroom tax: only fair to private tenants?
“Of all the arguments made for the bedroom tax, the most slippery is the one about it being ‘only fair to private tenants’. That should change after an all-party report published this week.” Jules Birch points out why the bedroom tax is unfair to social tenants compared to private tenants.
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.
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.
Frontline Friday 16th August 2013: Our favourite frontline blogs this week
Here’s our list of ten frontline blogs we’ve particularly liked from the week of 5th August 2013 - from Channel 4′s much criticised Benefits Britain programme, to the outsourcing of public services.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Three reasons a freemium model would never work in housing
“…unless the sector actively chooses this conversation then we will ultimately find ourselves losing control of the discussion and having innovation imposed upon us.” Matthew Gardiner considers the objections to housing associations using some of their empty homes to provide a first step for people who are unable to pay.
Rent chaos
If you are lucky enough to become a tenant of a social landlord, what should determine the rent you pay? Should it be a national Government-set formula that takes account of local incomes and property values? Or the cost of providing the home? Or your landlord’s local policy? Or your income? Or what will enable […]
What’s wrong with rising house prices?
The government’s ‘Help to Buy’ scheme could raise house prices by 20% in the next couple of years, according to a report by Fathom Consultancy. This is not being heralded as good news by everyone (although The Express has followed its time honoured tradition of solely reporting on speculation about house prices with a very […]
Housing wealth
“There has been lots of discussion recently about how much more the ’1%’ earn than everyone else. There has been less attention paid to how much more they own.” Thomas Neumark examines how wealth is more unequally distributed than income - including housing wealth.
Towards a popular left wing housing policy
The death of Margret Thatcher reminds us that she was the last Prime Minister to have a popular housing policy. The famous right to buy policy is still seen by many people as her greatest achievement. I doubt even their biggest supporters would list the housing policies of Major or Blair as among their greatest […]
Tackling squalor in a strategic way
‘Squalor’ was one of Beveridge’s ‘five great evils’. For most people the word probably conjures up Victorian slum conditions that were gradually overcome, over many decades, by better housing standards, state intervention, and the building of millions of new homes. The belief that things gradually get better has been undermined over the last 35 years, at least […]
Needed: a new language for tax and spend
“Just like challenging the dominance of the ‘scrounger’ narrative, this is another area where using the right language consistently will reap political benefits.” Steve Hilditch, writing on Red Brick, argues that we need a new language for ‘tax and spend’ to overcome the conventional view.
How far will public expenditure levels constrain the next government?
By Monimbo Each year the UK Housing Review maps the recent past and future prospects for public expenditure, focussing on housing. What does it tell us about prospects for housing investment if there is a change of government? If you listen to the Chancellor, you’ll have the impression that the last Labour government was profligate with public […]
Housebuilding - another great failure from the Coalition
“The Government is floundering about, trying to talk up housebuilding whilst adopting policies that will reduce it further and failing to act on the real barriers to development.” Red Brick argues that the Coalition’s approach to housebuilding is focused on failed policies and misses the real issues.
Mortgage advice
Mortgage lenders and house builders are more concerned with rebuilding their balance sheets than in building the number of new homes the UK needs. Some facts for you; UBS, the ‘financial services’ company, have been fined $1.5 bn for rigging markets. HSBC have been fined $1.9 bn for laundering money from drug cartels. The new Governor of the Bank […]