Posted: November 4, 2015 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housing associations, Right to buy | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally posted on November 4 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
Here are eight key themes that emerged in evidence from housing association executives to the parliamentary inquiry into the extension of the right to buy.
I wasn’t planning to but I got sucked in to watching the Communities and Local Government committee hearing on housing associations and the right to buy on Wednesday. Across two sessions with witnesses from eight different associations, here’s what I learned:
1) This is not just about the right to buy
The inquiry is meant to be focussed on the right to buy but questions ranged far and wide as MPs asked about the 1% rent cut, Pay to Stay, starter homes, shared ownership, redundancies, reclassification, mergers, you name it. As an indication of the pace of change, they were even questioned about a policy that has not even been announced yet but everyone assumes will be soon (the end of lifetime tenancies).
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Posted: November 3, 2015 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housing associations, London, Pay to stay, Right to buy, Section 106, Starter homes | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill, ONS |
Originally posted on November 3 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
As MPs debated the Housing and Planning Bill on Monday it was hard to escape the impression that the real action was elsewhere.
From the extension of the right to buy to the forced sale of council houses to starter homes, key discussions had either already happened or were still taking place outside the Commons chamber. Yes, talks behind the scenes are an inevitable part of any Bill, but far more so with this one than any other that I can remember. Yes, the Deal removes what would have been a key element in the legislation from parliamentary scrutiny but this is about more than just that.
That’s partly because this is a back of a fag packet Bill that sets out some general principles with the detail to be filled in later. We still know little more about how the sums will add up for paying housing association discounts from forced council sales than during the election campaign. And, as Alex Marsh points out in relation to Pay to Stay, there are whole chunks of the Bill that give the secretary of state the power to do pretty much whatever they like.
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Posted: November 2, 2015 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Home ownership, Social housing, Wales | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill, John Redwood |
Originally posted on November 2 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
How English housing policy arrived from Vulcan via Wales.
I’ve recently been putting together the 100th issue of Welsh Housing Quarterly. The 25-year history of the magazine is closely bound up with the story of Welsh devolution, a distant prospect when it was first published in 1990 but a developing process that led eventually to the first-ever Welsh Housing Act last year. But there was one period early on that has a very contemporary relevance for England as it prepares for the second reading debate on the Housing Bill on Monday and the spending review later this month.
In May 1993 Wales got a new secretary of state who seemed to come from a distant planet. The Conservative MP John Redwood was an intellectual Thatcherite with an appearance that prompted sketch writer Matthew Parris to come up with a comparison that has stuck ever since: ‘a new creature, half human, half Vulcan, brother of the brilliant, cold-blooded Spock’.
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Posted: October 27, 2015 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Housing associations, Local government, Pay to stay, Right to buy, Social housing, Starter homes | Tags: Brandon Lewis, Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally posted on October 20 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
A few answers and yet more questions: my round-up of the latest developments on the Housing Bill.
An ex-colleague used to speak in awed tones about the time he saw an old-school football reporter compose his match report for the Football Pink as the final whistle sounded. He took a cigarette packet out of this pocket, drew lines on it in the shape of paragraphs, and then dictated a word-perfect report down the line to the copy takers.
Much has changed since the olden days: smoking in public places; laptops and the internet have replaced phones and copy takers; and Pink ‘Uns died out long ago in most cities. But looking back at the events of the past week it seems that cigarette packets remain as popular as ever for drawing up plans – and for things infinitely more complicated than football matches.
This was exactly the metaphor used by an anonymous source in Jill Sherman’s story in The Times last week that the government is set to phase in the extension of the right to buy because of concern over the costs. ‘The Treasury people are hanging their heads in despair,’ the source said. ‘How did this policy that was made up on the back of a fag packet get adopted during the election campaign?’
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Jules Birch 