Posted: April 30, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Homelessness, Housing benefit, London, Television, Welfare reform | Tags: How to Get a Council House |
In case you missed it, How to Get a Council House is back – and so is the controversy about TV stereotypes and the hashtag on twitter.
The second series of the Channel 4 show focuses on the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and people affected by the benefit cap (two weeks ago), applying as homeless (last week) and in temporary accommodation (this week).
As with the first series, it’s provoked some strong reactions and it almost feels like we are in two different countries when I look on twitter.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Posted: April 9, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Poverty, Social housing, Universal credit, Welfare reform | Tags: Iain Duncan Smith, Joseph Rowntree Foundation |
Getting the same criticism from different people is usually a sign you’ve got something wrong. How about for IDS and the DWP?
Three different reports published this morning amplify earlier warnings about the implementation of the bedroom tax, the wider impact of welfare reform on tenants and landlords and the prospects for universal credit. But it would surprise nobody if the work and pensions secretary saw them as yet more evidence that his reforms are a success.
Two of them come from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). Steve Wilcox finds that what he neutrally calls the ‘housing benefit size criteria’ has affected fewer people than expected but that half of those are in arrears and 100,000 who want to downsize are trapped and unable to move. Anne Power concludes that welfare reforms may end up making tenants more, rather than less, dependent and are making them more vulnerable.
The third is from the work and pensions committee and warns that it is still not clear that universal credit will work. The MPs on the all-party committee think that implementation will be delayed even further and have some strong words about Iain Duncan Smith’s attitude towards their scrutiny.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Posted: April 2, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Social housing, Welfare reform | Tags: Tim Farron, Work and pensions committee |
Today’s report from the work and pensions committee is an all-party challenge to the fundamental principles of the government’s reforms of housing benefit.
To my mind it is the most serious attack on the bedroom tax, the benefit cap and a swathe of other reforms since the government was forced to overturn House of Lords amendments to the Welfare Reform Act on the grounds of financial privilege.
But you would not guess it from reports in the national media this morning. On Radio 4’s Today programme it was only judged the third most important select committee report of the day and the second most important housing story behind the Nationwide house price index. It’s also downplayed elsewhere with headlines about ‘distress’ and ‘hardship’ or even stolen by Tim Farron rather than about the committee’s call for wholesale changes that could benefit hundreds of thousands of people.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Posted: April 1, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Universal credit, Welfare reform | Tags: Esther McVey, Iain Duncan Smith |
Stop carping, you lot. The removal of the spare room subsidy is a success.
Today is of course the first of the month as well as the first anniversary of the introduction of the bedroom tax and a wave of other welfare reforms. But I am paraphrasing Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey rather than making a token effort at an April Fool.
Yesterday’s work and pensions questions brought inevitable attacks on the policy that has caused so much controversy since its introduction a year ago.
Labour’s Kate Green quoted last week’s reports from the BBC that just 6 per cent of households affected by the bedroom tax have managed to move and from Real Life Reform that eight out of ten are in debt and their borrowing is increasing by £52 a week. ‘Rather than preaching about careful budgeting, why do Ministers not just scrap this hated and unworkable tax, which is sending people spiralling into debt? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: March 26, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housing benefit, Social housing, Welfare reform | Tags: Iain Duncan Smith, welfare cap |
The debate about the welfare cap seems to be all about the politics. It should be about the contradictions at the heart of the policy too.
The coalition parties and the opposition are all supporting the measure that will place a legal restriction on most welfare spending from 2015/16 so, despite an expected Labour rebellion, it seems more or less certain to go through.
The cap started off as a political trap set by the Conservatives and Labour support reflects a determination not to fall into it.
Judging from his appearance on the Today programme this morning, Iain Duncan Smith seems determined to act as though Labour doesn’t really mean its support. But the example he chose says much about his priorities and the way the cap will operate.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Posted: March 13, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Homelessness, Housing benefit, Legal, Local government, Private renting |
Forced out of area moves are on the increase and they are not just happening in London.
The Oxford Times reports this week on cases of people being offered homes as far away in Cardiff, Cheltenham and Birmingham. The council blames the cuts in housing benefit and the benefit cap that make it impossible to find affordable private rented accommodation but a local solicitor has accused it of dumping people outside the area.
Elysha Britnell, a 22 year old mother of two children, was told she would have to move out of her temporary accommodation in Oxford and accept a home in Birmingham. She says she has no family and friends outside Oxford and has never lived anywhere else and is appealing against the decision:
‘I’m Oxford born and bred. If this appeal fails I’ll be completely homeless. I have got nowhere else to go. Even if I go to Birmingham, I may as well be homeless, because I have nobody there.’
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Posted: March 5, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Buy to let, Housing benefit, Housing market, Private renting | Tags: Interest rates, QE |
On today’s fifth anniversary of record low interest rates all the talk is about how savers have lost out to borrowers. It should also be about renters and owners.
On 5 March, 2009 the Bank of England cut its main interest rate to 0.5 per cent, the lowest in history, and began its associated policy of quantitative easing in a successful attempt to prevent economic collapse.
But the effects continue to be controversial. The campaign group Save Our Savers estimates that savers have lost £117 billion in lost interest over the last five years plus another £209 billion from the way inflation has reduced the spending power of their money.
In contrast, borrowers have gained billions from lower interest rates. SOS’s message resonates because of the perceived unfairness that prudent savers and are paying to extricate us from a crisis caused by excess borrowing.
But what about the housing impact? In a CIH policy essay a few months ago, I did a rough calculation that mortgage borrowers have saved around £30 billion a year as a result of lower mortgage rates, QE and politcies such as Funding for Lending. Those with larger mortgages and with enough equity to remortgage to lower rates will have gained proportionately the most. The impact has also varied considerably between different regions.
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Posted: February 19, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Labour market, Local government, Social housing |
Why is there so little debate about the fact that social housing rents are set to rise so much faster than prices and earnings?
Figures out this week from the ONS show that CPI inflation rose 1.9 per cent in the year to January and average earnings rose just 1.1 per cent in 2013. Earnings have now been falling in real terms since 2010, the longest period forat least 50 years.
And yet all around the country social landlords are preparing to increase their rents by at least twice the rate of inflation, and many times more than earnings, according to recent surveys by Inside Housing.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Posted: January 29, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housing benefit, Social housing | Tags: Affordable Housing Programme |
There are at least three contrasting and sometimes conflicting imperatives at the heart of the prospectus for the Affordable Homes Programme published this week.
The first (let’s call it the HCA one) is a pragmatic desire to do more with less in difficult circumstances. The second (the political one) is the imperative of big numbers to be able to quote in press releases and in parliament. The third (the ideological one) is a determination to exploit these circumstances to accelerate the slow death of social housing. Amid the tensions between these three aims several vital issues are barely addressed or else ducked completely.
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Posted: January 27, 2014 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Social housing | Tags: Ed Balls, Labour |
The weekend’s big speech by Ed Balls looks like significant news for housing under a future Labour government – and not just for the obvious reasons.
The national headlines from the shadow chancellor’s speech to the Fabian conference were taken by his pledge to restore the 50p rate of tax and subsequent accusations that Labour is therefore anti-business. The undoubtedly good news for housing was that it will be ‘a central priority’ if Labour wins power in 2015.
But it was Balls’s message about ‘fiscal discipline’ that was more interesting to me:
‘We won’t be able to reverse all the spending cuts and tax rises that the Tories have pushed through. We will have to govern with less money, which means the next Labour government will have to make cuts too. No responsible Opposition can make detailed commitments and difficult judgments about what will happen in two or three years time without knowing the state of the economy and public finances that we will inherit.
‘But we know we will face difficult choices. The government’s day-to-day spending totals for 2015/16 will be our starting point. There will be no more borrowing for day-to-day spending. Any changes to the current spending plans for that year will be fully-funded and set out in advance in our manifesto.’
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Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Jules Birch 