10 things about 2013: part 2

Posted: December 30, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Buy to let, Help to Buy, Housebuilding, Housing market, Labour market, Planning, Private renting, Wales | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Here’s the second part of my look back at the key themes I’ve been blogging about this year.

6) Help to Buy

If the bedroom tax was the subject I blogged about most in 2013 (see Part 1 of this blog), Help to Buy was certainly the best (or worst) of the rest.

The first hints of the scheme came in January as the coalition published its Mid-Term Review. Perhaps conscious of the gap between rhetoric and reality when it came to the government’s record on housing, David Cameron promised more help for people who cannot raise a deposit for a mortgage, with details to come in the Budget. By March Cameron and Clegg were promising what sounded to me like the coalition’s fourth housing strategy in three years. And in the Budget George Osborne duly announced what I called a huge gamble, loosening the targeting of previous schemes at first-time buyers and new homes and extending the help available much further up the income scale.

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10 things about 2013: part 1

Posted: December 23, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Legal, Local government, Social housing, Welfare reform, Welfare state | Tags: | Leave a comment

The first of a two-part look back about the issues and people that I’ve been blogging about this year.

1) The year of the bedroom tax

Thinking back to the beginning of January it was obvious that the under-occupation penalty would be a huge issue for housing in 2013. What soon became clear was that it would go mainstream in the national media and parliament too. The closer we got to implementation in April, the more scrutiny it received, and the more that happened the clearer the unfairness and the contradictions at the heart of the policy came into focus. All the attention seemed at first to take the government by surprise too. It wasn’t until February that Grant Shapps came up with the government’s preferred term: the spare room subsidy. That prompted me to blog about the battle of language on the issue and in the wider debate about welfare/social security.

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Mark their words

Posted: December 19, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Social housing | Leave a comment

The postcode lottery facing disabled applicants for discretionary housing payments (DHPs) revealed today may be shocking but is it so surprising?

A survey by the National Housing Federation found that 29 per cent of disabled victims of the bedroom tax were denied DHPs by councils around the country.

But freedom of information requests revealed huge variation around the country, with the proportion of disabled people making successful applications as low as one in seven in parts of Kent and less than three in ten in North East Derbyshire, Basildon, Rotherham and parts of Lancashire.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Taking the pledge

Posted: December 17, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning | Tags: , | Leave a comment

The optimist in me hopes that Ed Miliband’s launch of Labour’s independent housing commission marks the start of a political arms race on housing ahead of the next election.

In this scenario, his target of 200,000 homes a year by 2020 and eye-catching policies to achieve it will strengthen the hand of the pro-development wing of the Conservative Party and mean that whoever wins the next election will have a serious crack at tackling the supply crisis.

The pessimist in me worries that I’ve seen little so far that suggests the target is achievable (see Colin Wiles on this last week) and that the two policies that have made the headlines won’t work except in the sense of strengthening the hand of the Tory nimbys.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Inside the pressure cooker

Posted: December 16, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Homelessness, Housing benefit, Private renting, Welfare reform | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

So what is really happening to homelessness in the wake of the financial crisis, housing shortage and cuts in benefits?

Where the Homelessness Monitor 2013, published on Friday by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, paints a picture of a grim situation that is bad and getting worse, the DWP and DCLG seem to see only sunshine and happy smiling faces.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Free exchange

Posted: December 11, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning, Social housing | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Alex Morton’s move from Policy Exchange to the No 10 Policy Unit is a powerful symbol of something – but what exactly?

For some it’s a signal of a ‘housing dream team’, with Morton joining Nick Boles in a push to take the Yes to Homes message to the heart of government. Boles is of course planning minister but he was also the first director of the organisation dubbed ‘David Cameron’s favourite think tank’.

And it’s not just them either. Boles was succeeded as director by Anthony Browne, now Boris Johnson’s adviser for economic development, and Browne was succeeded by Neil O’Brien, who is now a special adviser to George Osborne. Three other alumni became Conservative MPs in 2010.

For others it will seem more like housing’s worst nightmare. Morton has developed some controversial as well as influential ideas and now the Exchangers are now well placed in No 10, the Treasury, the DCLG and the main city with a housing problem.

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Gloomy forecast

Posted: December 10, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing market, Private renting | Leave a comment

It’s the time of year for predictions and the prospects do not look good for anyone struggling to get on to the housing ladder or afford their rent.

The latest Home Truths report from the National Housing Federation predicts that house prices in England will rise by 35 per cent by 2020. However, the bad news does not stop there for the ‘huge swathe of the population locked out of home ownership for life’ because rents will rise by 39 per cent over the same period.

The latest RICS housing market survey, also out this morning, shows that prices again rose sharply while expectations for future growth have risen to their highest level since 1999.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Dubious Dave

Posted: November 28, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit | Leave a comment

Is it too much to imagine David Cameron telling his aides in Downing Street to ‘get rid of all this facts crap’?

The question is prompted by an answer he gave earlier at Prime Minister’s Questions. This was the question from Labour MP Andy McDonald:

‘The Disability Benefits Consortium of over 50 charities has signed a letter to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions calling for immediate action to exempt disabled people from the bedroom tax. Why on earth do the Prime Minister and his Government refuse to listen?’

Cameron replied:

‘Obviously, what we have done is to exempt disabled people who need an extra room. This does, I think, come back to a basic issue of fairness, which is this: people in private sector rented accommodation who get housing benefit do not get a subsidy for spare rooms, whereas people in council houses do get a subsidy for spare rooms. That is why it was right to end it, and it is right to end it thinking of the 1.8 million people in our country on housing waiting lists.’

I highlight this not because I am naïve enough to expect ministers in general or the prime minister in particular to answer the questions they are asked (that would clearly be too much). Nor do I necessarily expect the answers to be the whole truth. But is it too much to expect a passing resemblance to the truth? Cameron’s answer in this instance offered two examples of misleading the House of Commons for the price of one.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

City limits

Posted: November 26, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Local government, Planning | 1 Comment

Today’s Draft London Housing Strategy is the boldest attempt yet seen from a Conservative administration to get to grips with the housing crisis. It still does not go remotely far enough.

In his foreword, mayor Boris Johnson says London is facing an ‘epic challenge’ of building more than 42,000 new homes a year, every year, for 25 years. Of these, 15,000 would be affordable and 5,000 for market rent.

That is no exaggeration. As he goes on to say, that is ‘a level of housebuilding unseen in our great city since the 1930s’. To put it in perspective, the average over the last 20 years, at a time when the population was growing rapidly, was 18,000 per year. London has not come close to 42,000 completions a year since the war, even at the peak of the council housing boom in the late 1960s.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

Running on empty

Posted: November 20, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Bedroom tax, Housing benefit, Social housing, Wales | Leave a comment

As the bedroom tax celebrates its debut in the Oxford English Dictionary, there is new evidence today that it is creating empty homes rather than removing ‘spare’ bedrooms.

A survey published by Community Housing Cymru (CHC) today suggests that the first six months of the under-occupation penalty have cost more than 1,000 affordable homes in Wales.

Welsh housing associations say they have 727 homes standing empty as a result the policy. Meanwhile 78 per cent have seen an increase in their rent arrears, with over £1 million attributed to the bedroom tax. Some 51 per cent of tenants are paying the shortfall, 37 per cent are part-paying and 12 per cent are not paying at all.

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing

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