Bring on the debate about social housing

David Lindsay

Council tenants to be evicted on the whim of their betters. Exactly as proposed by the last lot, in fact. Tony Blair's Policy Unit and its think tank chums have a lot to answer for. Don't vote for David "The Evicter" Miliband.

Three cheers for Simon Hughes. Let us hope that he will now go to the root of the problem: the sale of council housing. That policy compelled the State to make gifts of significant capital assets to people who were thus enabled to enter the property market ahead of private tenants who had saved for their deposits. And, as part of Thatcher's invention of mass benefit dependency, it created the Housing Benefit racket, which is vastly more expensive than the maintenance of a stock of council housing.

Now, I am a good Chestertonian in this as in most, though not quite all, matters. I would dearly love every household to have a base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State. But within the practicalities of these things, there is also a very strong case that each locality should have a base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty centre.

Already, under the last lot, the powers that be apparently could not distinguish between the respectable working class and the characters from Shameless. So council and housing association tenants were to lose security of tenure so that Shameless characters could be moved in next door to them, or even in place of them. Those in that actual or potential position should contact Simon Hughes without delay.

Chuck Unsworth

Why should Council House tenants have greater security of tenure than everyone else? If mortgages or private tenancies remain unpaid people can be evicted - in the case of Shorthold Tenancies after two months notice or thereabouts. Is there a justification for Council House tenants living in housing (which we all pay for) in perpetuity?

Fergus Pickering

Is it really so that council house tenants can leave their tenancies to their children? And can those children leave the tenancy to THEIR children? Does everybody think this is OK?

JohnPage

Waugh may report Hughes' dissent as vociferous, but on WATO Hughes went put of his way to say the policy must be open to careful discussion while raising lots of questions about it.

While there are long waiting lists, consider two examples:

1. Why should children inherit a council tenancy?

2. Why should empty nesters continue to occupy a 4 bed council house?

J H Holloway

'And, as part of Thatcher's invention of mass benefit dependency'

The Left don't actually believe this line, but they sure think it will stick if they keep saying it.

Industry in this country, staggering on after decades of poor products and low investment in plant, started to collapse in the early 1970s. Mr Lindsay might dimly remember the rash of nationalisations in the 1970s as heavy industry went into a nose dive.

Last Saturday there was a documentary about the death of steel and iron production on Teesside (a place I lived for three years). It mentioned that in the late 1970s British Steel 'invested' (with tax payer's money) in one of the biggest mills in the world.

By 1981 the mill was on its knees because orders had collapsed. Nothing to do with Maggie, just the beginnings of globalisation.

Maggie may have been at the scene, but it was Labour's laughable 'post war settlement' coming off the rails that was the original crime.

Verity

Look at Dave's greedy chipmunk cheeks.

GeoffH

For heaven's sake.

Cameron posed a question. An idea for discussion. Nothing more.

This is not the time for *argument* (as if a policy had been tabled in a Bill in Parliament) but a *discussion*.

Other blogs have been calling down plagues of locusts as a consequence of *immediate changes* tomorrow.

Can we all be bit more sensible here? Please.

FullFact

Whilst a debate about housing can only be a good thing, it does need to be grounded in some facts, and the Government definitely got its facts wrong today: http://bit.ly/aMuTA5

burnie

Well, who sold them all in the first place?

Chuck Unsworth

Wat Tyler has an excellent piece right now on this here:

http://www.burningourmoney.blogspot.com/

Marcher Baron

And while they're debating the subject, let's have them reconsider the practice of giving hugely expensive houses to those who breed indiscriminately just because they have a large family. If Labour hadn't imported so many immigrants (who also tend to have large families) we wouldn't have anywhere near as much pressure on housing, would we? The answer is not to concrete over more farmland. We're going to need every inch we can cultivate soon to feed the 70 million, never mind the 5,000.

strapworld

Council Estates now have a stigma which is unfair.

In the early fifties I well remember the pride and elation when my parents received notification that we had been allocated a brand new council house, in Chadderton. Near Oldham.

The brand new estate brought together people who, obviously, had not known each other before but I can remember it was a happy Avenue we lived on.

Most of those council houses have now been sold, so depriving so many people of the opportunity to have a good roof over their heads. It may be seen as a good policy by Maggie. I believe it was stupid and shortsighted.

Private landlords can be good or bad, but as already stated if you fall into arrears you are out!

The majority of young people cannot afford to purchase a house. That is why in coastal and rural area's children, when setting up home with their loved one, are forced to move away as prices are ridiculously high because of second or third home owners.

The cost of rental properties are very high now and the last government and Maggie before hand, had never allowed councils to use the money from the sales of council housing to build new council houses.

The private sector with their Housing Associations etc took over but they have not built sufficient to fill the real need.

I think Cameron has missed a trick. I agree that tenants of council houses should not have a right to pass that house unto family members. That tenants in a large property should be requested to move into a smaller property to make way for families. But to treat them as he has made it sound is crass.

Cameron should, alongside this policy (if it is) should announce a mjor build of council housing throughout the nation. This would create thousands of jobs and also show that he really cares for people from the needy to the richest.

He should also ban the ownership of second or three homes!

That would make sense.

As for Hughes. He often makes statements he never backs up. Just ignore the man.

TGF UKIP

Doing his house mag duty, Pete predictably steers well clear of what Hughes' planned grenade attack means for the Speccie's beloved Coalition.

Guido, equally predictably, has it bang on.

Victor Southern

Straps - I remember Gordon Brown announcing a huge house-building programme of 3-million new houses by 2020. That would have been 230,000 houses per year. This was reannounced by Yvette Cooper and then by Caroline Flint. They were only announcements as after 2 years fewer than 38,000 new houses had been completed.

Building houses cost money. That money can come from entrepreneurs [or owner builders] or directly or indirectly from the State. Since there is no money there can be precious few houses built for social housing.

There are several problems besetting the supply of rented accommodation. 750,000 habitable or near habitable dwellings are empty throughout the UK. A lot of those are flats above high street shops - ideal for small families and the elderly.

A second problem lies in the concept that it is cheaper to knock down an old house and build anew than to modernise the house. It certainly shouldn't be so in all logic.

The fourth problem lies in the increase of small family units, single parents - 2 or 3 people live in a house where once there would be 4. That, in turn, means there are more people living alone - a societal change.
Perhaps, lastly - the rate of immigration. It is unsustainable and puts absurd pressures on all supply. If 300,000 people a year arrive on our shores to stay then that means about 100,000 housing units or more are required. That brings me in full circle back to the unfulfilled promise.

J H Holloway

'Cameron should, alongside this policy (if it is) should announce a mjor build of council housing throughout the nation.'

Could somebody explain to me why millions of people should be given a subsidised/free houses (and free repairs) while millions of other people (who probably pay more tax) have to pay full whack for their own house?

And who decides?

All parties shy away from mass public housing after the utter disasters of the 60s and 70s housing projects. They also realise that dumping lots of poor and inadequate people in the same place leads to massive problems.

Perhaps the only way to solve this problem is for the government/local government to buy up brownfield sites that would otherwise not receive planning permission and get house builders to put up simple, robust housing (perhaps even factory-made modular units) that can be sold for cost plus 10 percent.

At least then the owners will have tiny mortgages and, because they are ultimately responsible for the house, will have more of a stake in the area and keeping standards up.

It's the price of land, the planning permission premium and labour-intensive, site-built houses, that make housing expensive.

JohnBUK

So, according to some here, the State should be in the business of building and renting houses???
Since when has the State done anything like this competently?
We need to get away from the straight jacket of house ownership and be more like other nations who see housing as just that, not an investment opportunity. The problem started in the 50's with the Rackmann issue, we need to get out of the way of private landlords and encourage considerably more private rental opportunities.
The market will eventually balance itself in terms of average rents if onerous conditions are removed from prospective renters.
the issue of Council housing will then dissipate.

Neil Wilson

It always boils down to money. All housing is the use of a monopoly resource with social costs attached. If you are bouncing around individually in a five bedroom mansion then you should pay for the privilege - council tenant or millionaire

If you price the externality right, then the market will sort it out. In a country where there is a shortage of housing it cannot be right that people occupy large houses that are too big for them, or sit on development land and not develop it without paying handsomely.

Ali C

from a council tenant posting elsewhere ...its about whether or not we should look at reassessing people's needs and means on a regular basis to see if their social housing demand is still applicable or needs adjusting. YES IT SHOULD BE! Mine included. Families grow up and move on, and those houses should be reallocated to people more in need. This possibility is more than likely listed in your tenancy agreement already. I appreciate you may have spent years doing up your council house, but thats your choice. At the end of the day, IT DOESNT BELONG TO YOU.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1300011/Council-houses-longer-life.html#ixzz0vfoGAkzO

General Zod

It is self-evident that tenancies for life reinforce the culture of dependence on the state and stifle ambition and enterprise. Cameron hasn't suggested making people homeless - although the hysterical reaction of the left would suggest otherwise - merely that tenure of a council house should not be for life.

PS Verity, I note that, as usual in relation to Cameron, you have nothing of value to say.

ieatdolphins

There is nothing wrong with tower blocks. In every single other country I have stayed in--and that is a lot--people mostly live happily and peacefully in highrises. They are a cheap, efficient and actually quite pleasant residential option. Hong Kong is all high-rise, South Korea and China have villages of high-rises. Only in Britain does this weird idea persist that high buildings make people bad. Rubbish. The problem is the people.

Ruby Duck

Firstly, councils should be permitted/encouraged to make a decent profit out of renting
Secondly, the matter of whether to build or not should be determined at the local level according to local circumstances
Thirdly, long tenure is not an issue. A natural mix of age groups is stabilising and of significant social benefit in terms of informal childcare, informal counselling, transfer of skills etc. I think it's called community but it may be a small form of the big society in todays parlance.

Nobody who has not been very hard-up, with children, can possibly understand the fear of eviction and its consequences in terms of behaviour. Council housing was introduced as a practical way of countering the evils consequent on that kind of insecurity. Private rental is for the mobile and transient and works very well for that market. To expect it to replace publicly funded housing would require the reintroduction of the ludicrous Fair Rent and secure tenure regime of the late 60s and 70s with the inevitable consequence of the total destruction of the sector.

Pip

I listened to a woman yesterday on the radio explaining that she had lived in her 3 bedroomed council house, with a large garden, for 12 years and paid £520 per month rent. She has husband, two children aged 16 and 18 and two dogs. A two bedroomed house in her area would cost about £1200.00 rent per month. Her view was that she should be entitled to leave the tenancy to her children so that she knew that whatever happened to her, they would always have a home.
Why on earth would she voluntarily give that up ? Where is the incentive for that family to move when things improve and leave this housing for its original purpose - social housing for those in need.

David McCarthy

Please refrain from discriminatory attitudes towards the disadvantaged , exploited population of the UK .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lg51dzWHJE

The problem is gross mismanagement by local authority's the government and the banking sector instead of saying why should they have a home why not realise the people managing the problem are profiteering and are creating these problems for the benefit of private individuals.

1990 Average pay £17,689.37

1990 Average House Price £50,000

2010 Average Pay £37,580.11

2010 Average House Price £167,425

This is the average, Minimum Wage work is just enough for subsistence living in the UK there is only one problem to solve the in-equality in the British social system,
The usury supported by our government who bailed out the banks who create the in-affordability in order to generate debt as capital, The media who support the housing bubble are also to blame and the private individuals profiteering from this need to be made accountable for there unethical/fraudulent conduct.
There is no housing shortage in the UK The Empty Homes Agency estimates that there are 840,000 empty homes in the UK. National Land Use Database figures indicate that a further 420,000 homes could be established in disused commercial properties in England, including former pubs and space above shops. The number of second homes in England rose by 2.6% in 2009 following a contraction in 2008 of -0.4%. This rise, which equated to 6,212 additional second homes, pushed the total to an all-time record of 245,384.
In total 1.5 million homes that could be used to house people plus the additional 200,000 + homes privately let to generate capital for individuals often rented by people who cannot afford to buy but are allowed to pay someone else’s mortgage for them.
An estimated 590,000 people arrived to live in the UK in 2008, the second highest figure on record after 596,000 in 2006. This compared with 574,000 in 2007 and represents a continuation of the level of immigration seen since 2004. Of all immigrants 505,000 (86 per cent) were non-British citizens in 2008. Plus Illegal immigrants , refugees etc...
There is also the issue of housing associations who have been demolishing old council housing and in some cases selling the land to private contractors. Also green and brown land on what were previously council estates have been developed by private contractors.

Anyone embroiled in the right to buy argument should read.

http://www.politics.co.uk/briefings-guides/issue-briefs/housing-and-planning/right-to-buy-$366612.htm

Holly ......

Two people in a 3/4 bedroom COUNCIL house,
when there are people with children living in a 2 bedroom house needs sorting.
This is what the left nag on about...not enough social housing for growing families.
Yet as soon as the problem is mentioned up fly their arms screaming 'nasty Tories,nasty
Tories'!!!
These are not and should not be inherited or be the automatic right of the kids.
The people in this country need to be told the state does NOT owe you a living,a house or anything you don't warrant,need or pay for yourself through working.
These homes are for families & if your children are grown up & have left home you do not need a 3/4 bedroom house especially when others, who do have children at home,
are crying out for a bigger house.
"Where will my grand children sleep" is a favourite excuse...
On a bed settee in the lounge or in your bedroom!Why should other families with their children live in crammped houses just so you have empty bedrooms most of the time.
As I said...THESE HOUSES ARE NOT YOURS!
Anyone in a 3/4 bedroom COUNCIL house should
be queing up to hand over the keys for the next family to move into and move yourself into a more appropriate size house.
How can it be social housing,when it does not serve society & the different needs of people at different times/circumstances during their lives?
This is addressing the I NEED from the I WANT....quite justified in my oppinion.

Bill Fraser

There seems to be an element of hypocrisy in this "social housing" debate.

Apparently, it is acceptable to buy your "council house" effectively removing
it and thousands of others from social housing stock, but unacceptable if you want to continue paying rent for it.

Would suggest if there is a waiting
list for council housing that the
blame lies with those who depleted
the "social housing" stock, by
encouraging tenants to buy "their"
council houses, instead of buying
privately.

BF

jack

The banks owen the morgages. the banks are owend by the people, In my way of seeing things we all live in social houseing.Many of these debters or so called property owners as thay like to be called, seem suddenly conserned for the people on houseing waiting lists. I never hared many sounding off when thay sold social houseing stock off cheaply. past Governments have helped many house buyers out in hard times and i for one are pleased that this can be.If you want a drum to bang why not start with carrupt MPs Unscrupulous land lords Thiefing bankers. And maybe we can have something done about people working to many hours when someone else can't get a job maybe then some council tenants could get a morgage

Tim Carpenter LPUK

First off we should discard the terms "council housing", "affordable housing" and (shudder) "social housing".

What we are talking about is "subsidised housing".

To imagine you can keep gaining subsidies beyond the point at which you would qualify "just because", or inertia is, in a word, obscene. That is like saying once on jobseekers you can get it for life AND pass on the benefit you your firstborn. No, it is inexcusable.

By using the proper term, we can see what we are doing.

Next we apply market rentals to all Council properties.

Housing Benefit is then the vehicle used to subsidise and this will enable people to be more mobile, ending the imprisonment in sink estates. They can move without going cap-in-hand and queue up again - as if they have not enough to deal with.

As peoples' circumstances change, so does their HB entitlement.

The above means that it does not matter as much if someone sticks around in a council property, for it is not subsidised and they are not really blocking another person from staying there. This enables tenants to decide when they move on, paying part of their rental in cash as their HB recedes, so enabling people to plan their lives, in particular that of timing for schools etc. or work.

Existing as well as new secure tenancies should be ended now, along with the madness of inheriting - funny how that inheritance is kept so quiet by the Left when they seem to bray incessantly over "unearned wealth"...

Put all this together and you will rapidly realise that there are less and less reasons for the Council to be in the house building game. I suspect the Council is unable to put up new properties more efficiently or cost effectively unless it abuses its position over planning consents*.

As a final point, we need to also end the mindset that expanding ones family while already on benefits automatically entitles one to claim additional benefits (housing and money). When most people have another child, the Fairy Godmother does not magic up an extra room or additional income. Want more kids? Earn more. That has to be the way.

* speaking personally, any new land sales should be auctioned off on a per-plot basis so self-builders, small speculators can get a look-in. One wonders how, in truth, the tendering for housebuilding actually goes on. So much money. So much to gain. It is currently a magnet for corruption.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

jack,

You forgot the behaviour of Local Councils when the idea of "regeneration" is floated. Unlike banks and landlords, the Council is a monopoly enforced by threats of imprisonment.

jack

thank you Tim Carpenter LPUK for your input.
I would also like to add that the council house rents are not subsidised has many people would like you all to think. council tenents don't pay a morgage, So council tenents don't pay intrest. All so very inportantly Council house tenents pay for life not for 25 years. As for handing the tenancy down to children lets see if i live to 75 my daughter will be 58 as she is all ready married with children in her own morgaged home I think that is a blatant lie How many children of elderly council tenents haven't got there life sorted out by the age of 58 If you have a morgage and Don't actually own the property you can take in a lodger. how many morgage owners do that then, without declaring any thing to the tax man. Tax relieve on a Morgage not given to a tenent. To be able to use a property morgaged to the hilt, to run a buisness from, not allowed in a council property.people takeing out morgages thay can't afford have brought this country to its knees. We are helping these people to stay in there houses buy bringing the intrest rates down to all most nil this in-fact then lets the morgage owner pay less each month on there morgages than council house tenents pay in rent. Now lets talk about camerons mortifies. Private sector rents are criminal. most private sector landlords are multy property owning bankers. now through distorting market forces by leaving propertys empty till the government puts a family in. These rents are so huge that all-though the family are working thay still have to rely on government help to pay the rent. Just the same as most morgage owners are now doing through subsidised intrest rates. Now then the bigger the property the biger the extortionate cost to the houseing benefit who have the biggest familys yep imigrants move over council tenent 80 million turks are comeing your way. To that Mr Cameron I say don't get a horse if you havent got a stable. Cameron as the power to compulsory purchase these empty propertys if he is that concerned about the woman sleeping on a airbed then use that power. Thats another thing politicians useing single case scenarios to distort the facts then claiming thay don't comment on individual cases when one is used by someone else. The greatest amount of social money goes to private landlords Most council property's are three bedroom property's the massive payment you hear of go to massive familys how many massive familys are english none has for selling council property, off a lot were sold to houseing asociations a lot of these were three bedroom property's most of them have now been made into multi ocupation property's to maximize the profits not to house women who sleep on air beds so her daughters can have a room each. (that in its self would be funny if it wan't so serious) Then the Houseing associations are classed as charity's not for proffit organisations so as not to make a proffit thay keep putting up the directors wages I don't think there ever going to go into the black anytime soon what are the directors payed now days then dave, you seem to know a lot about houseing, or did that slip your mind, let me remind you thay are in the hundreads of thousands of pounds a year charity my arse.

Alf G

I was Reading the paper Yesterday, When I came across An artical, About a Woman who draged her children across the country to Role morts funeral. When I read she was living in a 3 bedroom £350,000 pound mock tuder house Payed for by the goverment. I shoot round to the bookies to place a bet on weather the woman on the air-bed, or the cretin with the kids gets the council house. Well it was worth a try.
The woman on the air bed and People like her have been in this position, since Uncontrolled imagration became rampant on these shores. But the bookies were wrong not to take that bet. because none of these people will get these Council homes, Because the homes Cameron is talking about are on inner London council estates. prime building land, for the Toffs. So in the middle of the most frightening financial situation. Were every one is being aked to pull together. He puts working man against working man, Read the forums I own my house, you live in subsidised housein Every man jack in this country is paying a morgage to the tune of about £86,000 So if your Teacher didn't right on your report David let me as a poor unemployed, painter, do it for him. Must try harder.
Here's another no brainer for you Dave. Don't Bring Home A Horse If You Havent Got A Stable. 80 million turks well I dis sper. The unemployed work sherkers who the bankers are feeding free credit to too buy there play stations, flat screen tv's, heroin, all good stop at home passtimes by the way. Shouldn't be in council Houses blitting the lives of hard working council tenent thay should be in bedsit land were all the illegal imegrants hide-out filling the back pocketts of unscrupulous landloards. But no Dave, I know and I know you know, to send the illegals home is just to exspensive, imposible even, and its no good puting the work sherks in des-ent private accomadation, because the land lords of these propertys wan't have them. So move over council tenents O dave you Promised us transparency and boy I can see right through you. And while this abysmal lot are mixed with decent hard working Council tenents, mugging,drug trafficking, child trafficking beating up on there children, I think you have a cheek chargeing anything for these council houses so were do you get cheap socil rents from Dave. and don't you fined it funny were you can still refer to social housing which to me as a stigmer atached, from the sixtys ,but you can't call a spade a spade like alf garnet did when the great British people laughted together has one not the social leapers of the council estates against the great debt burdend mortgagees of the still working class mortgage owners. O Dave are you starring up trouble and don't try to hang this on Labour, because we have been paying your wages for years so what the hell have you been doing. And just one more thing for now Dave, If you want to pick single case scenarios like the woman on the air bed, lets Not hear you and members of your party use the excuse we don't comment on single cases. ( End of Chapter one)