Many unhappy returns to the bedroom tax
Posted: April 1, 2014 Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Universal credit, Welfare reform | Tags: Esther McVey, Iain Duncan Smith 3 CommentsStop 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 »
Why registration is the key for private renters
Posted: March 30, 2014 Filed under: Help to Buy, Private renting | Tags: Generation Rent, voter registration 1 CommentCan the votes of private renters swing the next election and move their concerns up the political agenda in the process?
The huge shift in housing tenure seen this century suggests they can. In 2000 just two million households in England were private tenants. According to the English Housing Survey, that had doubled to almost four million by 2012/13. Add another 500,000 in Wales and Scotland, allow for another two years of growth and, with 1.8 people of voting age per household, you have nine million potential private rented votes at the next election.
Polling by Generation Rent, the recently relaunched National Private Tenants Organisation, suggests that the votes of private renters could be decisive in 86 seats in England. Of these, 38 are currently held by the Conservatives, 32 by Labour, 15 by the Lib Dems and one by the Greens. The results here could be enough to deliver an overall majority for David Cameron, make Ed Miliband the leader of the largest party or give Nick Clegg a major say in a new coalition.
Housing nations
Posted: March 28, 2014 Filed under: Scotland, Wales, Welfare state | Tags: Scottish independence Leave a commentWhat would a Yes vote to Scottish independence mean for housing in the rest of the UK?
With less than six months to go until the referendum, it’s not just in Scotland that the issues are being debated. While England may feel it can mostly ignore what’s happening north of the Tweed the question is perhaps felt more deeply in the other UK nations.
In Northern Ireland, a research institute has just warned of ‘substantial’ political, economic and social effects. And in Wales the issues were addressed directly this week in a debate at the TAI 2014 conference in Cardiff on the motion ‘This house believes an independent Scotland would be good for Wales.’
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Budget 2014: the next five years
Posted: March 20, 2014 Filed under: Budget, Economics, Housing market, Private renting, Welfare state | Tags: housing benefit Leave a commentNever mind today and tomorrow: what does the Budget mean for housing over the longer term?
As usual, some of the most revealing information comes not in the speech or the Treasury’s background documents but in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook published by the Office for Budget Responsibility. This time around the detail and the forecasts for the next five years have a lot to say about housing benefit, the welfare cap and the housing market.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Making the move
Posted: March 13, 2014 Filed under: Homelessness, Housing benefit, Legal, Local government, Private renting Leave a commentForced 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
Buy, buy, bye?
Posted: March 11, 2014 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing market, Mortgages | Tags: George Osborne Leave a commentAs George Osborne prepares for next week’s budget, even the people who’ve benefited are calling for changes to help to buy. But is he listening?
A survey out today finds that most mortgage lenders and brokers now believe that help to buy 2 – the more controversial mortgage guarantee element of the scheme – will be scaled back or scrapped before the official end date of 2016.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Minding the gap or moving the government?
Posted: March 10, 2014 Filed under: Economics, Housing market, London Leave a commentWhat can be done about the London problem: the growing economic divide between the capital and the rest of the country?
Mind the Gap, a two-part BBC documentary by Evan Davis, looked at the causes and consequences of the growing divide between London and the rest of the country. He argues that powerful economic forces are polarising Britain: in theory technology should mean we can work from anywhere but in practice the economics of agglomeration mean that businesses look to cluster together and secure the benefits go with being close to each other.
However, for all those positive effects there are negative externalities too: the pressures on transport infrastructure, the environment and perhaps above all housing. Not so slowly, but surely, Londoners are being priced out of their own city. Much of this was summed up by in part one of the programme by film first of The Shard and then, just a few miles, the derelict and the soon-to-be-gentrified Heygate Estate.
Jules Birch 