Posted: October 31, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Benefit cap, Homelessness, Housebuilding, Housing benefit, Prefabrication | Tags: Gavin Barwell |
Originally posted on October 31 on my blog for Inside Housing
The last four months have seemed to offer a series of new possibilities for housing from Theresa May’s new government. From the prime minister’s rhetoric about ‘a country that works for everyone’ to housing minister Gavin Barwell’s emphasis on the importance of all tenures, the signals have been pointing to a significant shift away from the stance of the previous Tory administration. Friday brought good news when the Homelessness Reduction Bill won a second reading with the support of the government.
But events in the next month or so will go a long way to determining where those signals are really leading us. For all the rhetoric we don’t know much more detail than when the government went back to work at the beginning of September. While the dates of some events are already set, others are expected “shortly”. Here’s a selected list:
November 7
A week today sees the start of the reduction in the overall household benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 elsewhere.
An updated impact assessment published in August estimates that 88,000 households (107,000 adults and 244,000 children) will be affected by the lower cap, including 64,000 who would not have been covered by the original cap.
That is much less than in the original impact assessment, one reason being that the government has introduced new exemptions for guardians and carers in response to defeat in the courts. It also seems on the low side given that it means housing benefit will not cover the rent for families in more expensive areas and with higher rents and for larger families everywhere, even in social housing. And it will only encourage more landlords to restrict their lettings of ‘affordable’ homes to ‘working families’.
To borrow a line from Steve Hilditch, if October ended with the Homelessness Reduction Bill’s second reading, then November will kick off what can only be a homelessness expansion policy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: October 24, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Culture, Homelessness, Local government, Poverty, Temporary accommodation, Welfare reform | Tags: I Daniel Blake, No Place to Call Home |
Originally published on October 24 on my blog for Inside Housing
Whether we are talking about benefits or housing, a new Ken Loach film and a BBC documentary expose a system that’s failing. In the face of growing demand and shrinking provision, the safety net has gaping holes. Rising homelessness and the queues at foodbanks are the symbols of this. The basics of life – shelter, food and warmth – can no longer be taken for granted.
Seen from the outside this is obvious and so are the answers. Return to provision based on need. Build more social housing. Abandon the divisive rhetoric of strivers and scroungers. Follow the founding principles of the welfare state.
Most people working on the inside will agree with this. But they also have to work within the system as it is and they know that there is little chance of real political change any time soon. This dual reality is perhaps most obvious in the social/business divide within housing associations but it exists right across the public and voluntary sectors too.
Watching I, Daniel Blake and No Place to Call Home over the last few days, these divides were obvious. One is a documentary, the other a film, but both would claim to be revealing truths about life when the safety net fails. But they also beg a less obvious question for people working within the system: how do you know when you’ve crossed the line between doing your best in an impossible situation and making that situation worse? One answer, I’d suggest, lies in the language we use.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: October 19, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Build to let, Construction industry, Housebuilding, Prefabrication, Private renting, Social housing |
Originally posted on October 19 on my blog for Inside Housing
Sometimes powerful arguments for a change of direction in housing policy come from unexpected places.
The Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model is a case in point. Before your eyes glaze over at the title, bear with me because it has profound implications not just for the way we build homes but also the sort of housing we build and who we build them for.
Subtitled Modernise or Die, the report was commissioned last year from the Construction Leadership Council by housing minister Brandon Lewis and skills minister Nick Boles. By the time it was published this week, both had moved on, but the policy context had also shifted on its axis.
Back then, the Treasury and George Osborne dominated housing policy and everything was about home ownership and Help to Buy. Now other departments have much more influence, we have a housing minister calling for a balanced approach to tenure and attention has turned to modern methods of construction for new homes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: October 14, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bed and breakfast, Homelessness, New towns, Social housing, Temporary accommodation | Tags: Peterborough |
Originally posted on October 14 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
How does somewhere that was built to solve the housing shortage end up being in the middle of one?
The place in question is Peterborough in Cambridgshire but events there in the last month resonate well beyond the city. Seen admittedly from the outside, this is the UK housing crisis in ten steps.
1) Build a new town
Peterborough was designated as a new town in 1967 to accommodate population overspill from London. Four new townships were added to what was already a Cathedral city, boosting the population from 83,000 to 190,000 over the last 40 years. The key, according to the former head of the development corporation Wyndham Thomas, was the acquisition of land at existing use values with debt repaid from finance generated by increased land values.
2) Watch the population grow
Housebuilding has failed to keep pace with a rising population in the south and east of England in general. In the case of Peterborough in particular add high levels of immigration. Cities Outlook 16, the regular survey by the Centre for Cities, shows that Peterborough was the third fastest-growing city in the UK for population with an annual growth rate of 1.5% a year between 2004 and 2014. The housing stock grew by the fourth fastest rate in the country between 2013 and 2014 but the rate was 1.1%.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: October 11, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Home ownership, Housebuilding, Housing market | Tags: Gavin Barwell |
Originally posted on October 11 on my blog for Inside Housing
Gavin Barwell has apparently spent the last two weeks telling old people who should inherit their property wealth and young people they should live in rabbit hutches.
The comments prompted outrage online and in the comment pages of the newspapers and the ones about inheritance saw him ‘slapped down’ by Downing Street. These were ‘personal comments’ and ‘certainly not policy’, said No 10.
But what did the housing minister actually say?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: October 6, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing market | Tags: Sajid Javid, Theresa May |
Originally posted on October 6 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
What would ‘housing that works for everyone’ look like?
Housing was a constant theme running through the Conservative conference this week. Communities secretary Sajid Javid said it was his ‘number one priority’ and announced a new(ish) £2bn fund for accelerated construction on public land plus ‘further significant measures’ in a white paper in the Autumn.
Housing minister Gavin Barwell is said to have addressed 17 different fringe meetings on housing and continued his charm offensive with more sensible comments about the need to encourage all tenures and tone down the obsession with home ownership and starter homes.
And Theresa May herself singled out housing as one example of market failure that requires government intervention to create ‘a country that works for everyone’ and an economy where ‘everyone plays by the same rules’:
‘That’s why where markets are dysfunctional, we should be prepared to intervene. Where companies are exploiting the failures of the market in which they operate, where consumer choice is inhibited by deliberately complex pricing structures, we must set the market right.’
‘It’s just not right, for example, that half of people living in rural areas, and so many small businesses, can’t get a decent broadband connection.
‘It’s just not right that two thirds of energy customers are stuck on the most expensive tariffs.
‘And it’s just not right that the housing market continues to fail working people either.’
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: September 29, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning | Tags: Gavin Barwell, Nick Raynsford |
Originally posted on September 29 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
Gavin Barwell told the NHF conference last week that he’s spent his first two months as housing minister asking everyone one simple question: ‘Why don’t we build enough homes in this country?’
It’s a good question that instantly made me think that he should ask one of his predecessors in the housing and planning job. I’m in the middle of reading Nick Raynsford’s new book Substance not Spin. After 43 years of experience as a campaigner and minister it’s subtitled ‘an insider’s view of success and failure in government’.
Any book from (for my money) one of the best housing ministers we’ve had during that time is going to be well worth reading. However, the title of one chapter in particular chimes exactly with what Barwell was talking about: ‘Why can’t we build enough homes?’
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: September 27, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Europe, Housing benefit | Tags: FEANTSA |
Originally published on September 27 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
Cuts in housing benefit are being blamed for a slump in the UK’s position in a European index of housing exclusion.
The UK was the biggest faller (down eight places) in the 2016 index and now ranks 20th out of 28 members of the European Union. The only countries doing worse than us are three in Southern Europe that were worst hit by the Eurozone crisis (Greece, Italy and Portugal) and five in Eastern Europe (Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia).
That puts us behind not just Scandinavian countries with more generous welfare states but also the rest of Western Europe and even Eastern European nations like Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Poland. The UK has the second biggest economy in the EU behind Germany.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: September 23, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Brexit, Construction industry, Europe, Housebuilding, Labour market, Prefabrication |
Originally published on September 23 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
If ‘Brexit means Brexit’ should it also mean a new programme of investment in social housing?
After a referendum that saw 63% of social tenants vote to leave the European Union, the attractions should be obvious. For ‘left behind’ voters it could mean both homes and jobs. For the government, now apparently edging away from an obsession with home ownership, it could offer a big pay-off from Philip Hammond’s ‘fiscal re-set’. For the purposes of this blog I’ll ignore all the other arguments in favour.
But it could also play into the wider politics of Brexit. Theresa May’s soundbite has yet to be translated into anything substantial but seems to be heading towards a ‘Hard Brexit’ outside the single market on the grounds that the referendum was a vote for controls on immigration.
That has huge implications for the housebuilding sector and the wider construction industry. Berkeley Homes boss Rob Perrins even claimed last weekend that a block on EU immigration could cut new homes by half. That is an exaggeration that could say more about his own workforce in London than the industry as a whole but this is still a huge issue. An alliance of construction organisations warned Brexit secretary David Davis earlier this month of a skills crisis if he does not make it a priority in the negotiations to come.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: September 15, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Homelessness, Housing benefit, Supported housing, Supporting People | Tags: Damian Green, Homeless Link |
Originally posted on September 15 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
There is good news, bad news and some continuing uncertainty in today’s long-awaited government announcement on the future funding of supported housing.
Originally expected before the summer recess, it finally came in a written statement from work and pensions secretary Damian Green. This follows the deferral of implementation of the LHA cap and 1% rent cut on the sector to allow more research and consultation.
Read the rest of this entry »
Jules Birch 