What David Cameron’s tax returns say about property
Posted: April 10, 2016 Filed under: Housing market, London, Pay to stay, Private renting, Tax | Tags: David Cameron, Panama Papers 3 CommentsNext time you read about ‘fat cats’ earning more than the prime minister here’s something to bear in mind: so does his house.
The summarised tax returns released by David Cameron this weekend show that he had a total taxable income of just over £200,000 in 2014/15. The first £141,000 of that were his earnings as prime minister: he has not taken a pay rise since 2010 and has also voluntarily waived a £20,000 prime ministerial expenses deduction since 2011.
Most of the Panama Papers coverage has concentrated on Cameron’s links to his father’s offshore fund and an inheritance gift from his mother. However, he is also the first prime minister to rent out his existing home while living tax-free in Downing Street. The accounts show that he had a net rental income of £47,000 from letting out his house in Notting Hill, an amount that notes to the accounts confirm is his 50 per cent share of the proceeds:
So the total rent (after expenses) received by the Camerons last year was £94,000 and in the first five years since he became prime minister they gained a total of £432,000 in rent.
However, that is not the total amount they will have ‘earned’ from their house as London house prices have also soared over the same period. The exact value of the Cameron house is hard to pin down, since they are reported to have spent £600,000 on renovations after buying it in 2006. Some reports put the value at £2 million in 2010, others £2.7 million.
The 101st day
Posted: August 16, 2015 Filed under: Budget, Labour market, Tax credits | Tags: Conservatives, David Cameron 4 CommentsThe Conservatives must be pinching themselves after 100 days in government. What can possibly go wrong?
For three months they’ve been able to do pretty much as they like. The Liberal Democrats are humiliated, Labour is demoralised and distracted and the opposition that has come from the SNP is a comforting reminder of the Scottish card that won the election. Thanks to all of that, plus expectations formed by inaccurate opinion polls, a government with a tiny majority elected with just over a third of the vote can behave as though it’s won a victory on a par with 1945, 1979 and 1997.
Yet the Tory luck cannot hold for ever. The obvious cloud on the horizon is Europe, with no sign that Brussels will hand David Cameron concessions meaningful enough to sell to his sceptical party ahead of the election. Economically, it’s far easier to start with a recession turn it into a recovery than it is to manage expectations in improving times.
But could the Conservatives turn out to be most immediately vulnerable where they seem strongest: on the ground they’ve staked out since the election to be ‘the real party of working people’? As Cameron put it in an article for the Telegraph on Saturday:
‘On the challenge of delivering an economy that supports working people, it is Conservatives who believe that a free enterprise economy is an ally not an enemy in generating wealth and extending opportunity. By cutting taxes, reforming welfare and increasing minimum wages we are showing we are the real party of working people.’
If at first you don’t succeed
Posted: July 13, 2015 Filed under: Affordable housing, Budget, Energy efficiency, Home ownership, Housebuilding, Planning, Shared ownership, Starter homes, Zero carbon homes | Tags: David Cameron, George Osborne Leave a commentOriginally posted on July 13 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
It may have important new provisions on housing and planning but the name of the government’s new productivity strategy rather gives the game away.
Described as ‘the second half of the Budget’, Fixing the Foundations was published by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills but includes chapters on housing and planning and welfare that amplify decisions taken in the first half.
But does the name remind you of anything? Go back four years and David Cameron himself was launching a ‘radical and unashamedly ambitious’ housing strategy. The title? Laying the Foundations.
Once they’ve stopped sucking air through their teeth, any builder will tell you that once you’ve laid the foundations and built on top of them, it’s enormously expensive to start to fix them. It’s also a pretty good indication that the foundations were pretty rocky to begin with.
Enemies of the state
Posted: July 5, 2015 Filed under: Home ownership, Housebuilding, Housing associations, Housing benefit, Right to buy | Tags: Conservatives, David Cameron, George Osborne Leave a commentOriginally posted on July 5 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
Bring it on. We are determined take you on. Who do David Cameron and George Osborne have in mind?
If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to read their op-ed in Saturday’s Times on ‘Here’s how to build a homeowning Britain’. They mean England of course. You can read extracts on the Number 10 website but that only gives a flavour of the full article so I’ve posted it here.
Ahead of the Budget, they promise that ‘a shake-up of inheritance tax and crackdown on nimby councils will give young people a foothold on the property ladder’. It is not just an explicitly, distinctively Conservative vision for housing but also a declaration of war against anyone opposed to that vision. Here’s my take on the key points:
‘Having your own place is an important stake in our economy. It’s also one of the best expressions of the aspirational country we want to build, where hard work is rewarded.
‘It’s also about social justice. We don’t want this to be a country where if you’re rich you can buy a home, but if you’re less well off you can’t. We want it to be One Nation, where whoever you are, you can get on in life.’
‘Here’s how to build a home owning Britain’
Posted: July 5, 2015 Filed under: Affordable housing, Help to Buy, Home ownership, Housing associations, Housing benefit, Right to buy, Starter homes | Tags: David Cameron, George Osborne 1 CommentHere is the full text of the belligerent op-ed on housing by David Cameron and George Osborne in Saturday’s Times. My post on the implications is here.
Here’s how to build a home owning Britain
David Cameron and George Osborne
A shake-up of inheritance tax and crackdown on nimby councils will give young people a foothold on the property ladder
At a time of uncertainty abroad, here at home we will be delivering a budget next week with economic stability at its heart, offering security for working people.
Encouraging home ownership is central to that. Having your own place is an important stake in our economy. It’s also one of the best expressions of the aspirational country we want to build, where hard work is rewarded.
It’s also about social justice. We don’t want this to be a country where if you’re rich you can buy a home, but if you’re less well off you can’t. We want it to be One Nation, where whoever you are, you can get on in life.
Read the rest of this entry »
Starters’ orders
Posted: March 3, 2015 Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding, Housing market, Mortgages, Starter homes | Tags: Brandon Lewis, David Cameron Leave a commentSo the national housing strategy now comes down to this ahead of the election: think of a big number and double it.
Even by recent standards, the starter home initiative plumbs new depths in allowing the politics to drive the policy. The idea of building 100,000 homes at a 20 per cent discount for first-time buyers was first proposed in David Cameron’s conference speech in October. The launch (of a website to register interest, as no homes will be built for some time) was accelerated to this month when the consultation was published in December. And in Cameron’s housing speech today it’s been doubled to 200,000 homes.
Housing minister Brandon Lewis made a written statement earlier that is an extraordinarily rapid government response to a consultation that only ended three weeks ago. However, the response (full version here) is only to the original plan for 100,000 homes, not Cameron’s doubling of it. Reading through some of the responses to the consultation today, I was especially struck by this comment from the Council of Mortgage Lenders:
‘Our overall view of the scheme as outlined is that it could provide a modest addition to the flow of lower cost housing for FTBs and we would support this main objective. But we would warn against setting over-ambitious targets for the scheme at this juncture, before the attractiveness of this particular proposition has been tested on the market.’
Starter’s orders
Posted: October 3, 2014 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housebuilding, Housing market | Tags: Conservative conference, David Cameron 1 CommentWho did David Cameron have in mind when he talked about the ‘vested interests’ that are blocking new homes?
Given the effort that goes in to honing a conference speech to get the messages exactly right, and the fact that the prime minister was reading from an autocue rather than speaking without notes like Ed Miliband, it seems safe to assume that he meant exactly what he said. Here’s what he told the Conservative conference this week:
‘For those wanting to buy a home, yes – we will help you get on that housing ladder…but only if we take on the vested interests, and build more homes – however hard that is.’
-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
The West London question
Posted: September 21, 2014 Filed under: Devolution, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales | Tags: David Cameron 3 CommentsThe West Lothian question is at the centre of the politics of the UK in the wake of David Cameron’s response to the No vote in the Scottish referendum.
The prime minister surprised his opponents by linking a demand for ‘English votes for English laws’ to the fulfilment of the three-party ‘vow’ to devolve more power to the Scots if they rejected independence.
Under pressure from English Conservatives and UKIP, Cameron said:
‘I have long believed that a crucial part missing from this national discussion is England. We have heard the voice of Scotland – and now the millions of voices of England must also be heard. The question of English votes for English laws – the so-called West Lothian question – requires a decisive answer.’
‘So, just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare, so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and at the same pace as, the settlement for Scotland.’
It is of course complete coincidence that this would benefit the Conservatives (one current MP in Scotland and eight in Wales) at the expense of Labour (40 in Scotland and 26 in Wales). Taken literally, it also threatens the timetable for ‘the vow’ and Alex Salmond is already claiming that No voters were tricked. Belatedly even Downing Street seems to have realised that this looked like Cameron, rather than Scottish unionists, was trying to get ‘the best of both worlds’. Two and a half days after the original statement it has issued a clarification that that new powers for Scotland are not linked to English votes for English laws
Jules Birch 