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The renters’ rights movement must look beyond ‘affordability’

As we enter the worst recession in 300 years, renters’ incomes will be squeezed with chances of meaningful wage-increases remote for most. As such, all concerned with safeguarding and improving renters’ quality of life should turn their attention to minimising the cost of living where possible.

Given housing costs are renters’ greatest expense, how rent is determined should be scrutinised closely with rent reduced as much as possible. In addition to benefiting renters as individuals, reductions in rent would serve to fortify aggregate demand during the recession1.

Competing definitions of affordability

In 2011, the coalition government introduced a definition of affordability which provided a rented property would be classified as ‘affordable’ if it cost no more than 80% of the local market rent.

The definition was absurd.

It is impossible to calculate whether something is affordable if the formula you use takes no account of the renter’s income and essential outgoings. In response, various well-intentioned actors, including the Labour Party came up with their own definitions² of affordability focusing on renters’ income and ability to pay.

The limitations of a focus on ‘affordability’

Any suggestion that market forces should not be the sole determinant of renters’ housing costs should be broadly welcomed. However, limiting demands around housing costs solely to those of ‘affordability’ has served to tacitly legitimate the landlord and renter relationship, a relationship that is, at its core, inherently exploitative.

The principle that landlords should profiteer from renters has become locked-in as ‘something that goes without saying’, all calls for affordability demand are that landlords’ profiteering should not be so great as to cause renters excessive hardship. Crucially, a focus on ‘affordability’ for the renter has meant the landlord’s side of the relationship has avoided scrutiny.

Scrutiny of how landlords justify the rent they charge exposes the inherent unfairness of the landlord and renter relationship

1) ‘Supply and demand’ might explain rent levels, but explanation does not equal justification!

Housing costs for renters should be based on the actual cost of supplying the home, not what the market can bear. Sometimes, because of the layout of the plumbing in certain properties, it is impossible for water companies to provide individual water bills for each household. When this is the case, the landlord of the building will receive one water bill for the entire property and then invoice each household for their portion of the bill.

It is unlawful for landlords to make a profit from the re-sale of water in such circumstances as it is recognised it would be morally abhorrent to profiteer from something so necessary to human survival when the water company has already done so.

Given shelter’s own importance to human survival and given that everyone involved in the construction of the home has already been paid for their work and materials, there is no compelling reason why re-sale of shelter should be treated differently.

2) Landlords’ costs of supplying a home, outside of initial acquisition, are negligible compared to the rent they charrge.

45% of landlords own their renters’ homes outright without a mortgage. For such landlords, the ongoing cost of supplying a property to a renter is limited to the costs incurred keeping the property in a good state of repair and fit for human habitation (£73.17 per month on average for a three bedroom home). In comparison, the average rent on a three-bedroom home in Manchester is £895.00 per month.

3) It is unfair for landlords to expect renters to cover the cost of initial acquisition of the home through their rent, unless ownership is transferred in exchange!

As an alternative to pointing to the free market price mechanism, landlords sometimes use their Mortgage CMIs as justification for the rent they charge. It is unfair for them to do so. If landlords want somebody else, i.e. renters, to cover their costs in acquiring ownership of the home, as a basic point of fairness, ownership of the home should be transferred to the ones doing the actual paying in exchange.

Currently, landlords have their cake and eat it, at the renter’s expense.

Moving beyond affordability

If challenges to housing costs focus solely on ‘affordability’ a systematic investigation of landlordism, and subsequent exploration of pathways that could lead to greatly reduced housing costs for renters, such as nationalisation of the private rented sector, become foreclosed.

It is unclear why, historically, supposedly progressive actors have been content only to ask for ‘affordability’ on behalf of renters. There may have been a lack of courage in challenging landlordism head on, or perhaps a latent ‘protestant work ethic’ type notion that it is virtuous for housing costs to be at least a bit of a burden for renters.

Whatever the historic reasons, we are now in extraordinary times, merely asking for affordability is not good enough.

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Tom Lavin</span></strong>
Tom Lavin

Tom Lavin is on the organising committee of ACORN Liverpool and a Justice First Fellow working in housing law at Merseyside Law Centre. He previously worked for Shelter as a housing adviser.

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1 This argument is made here in relation to rent suspensions but can equally be applied to reducing rent.

² Housing charity Shelter state a rented property should not be considered affordable if housing costs are greater than 35% of net household income: https://blog.shelter.org.uk/2015/08/what-is-affordable-housing/  Manchester City Council came up with a more convoluted formula based on the average income of residents in the city: https://secure.manchester.gov.uk/info/100007/homes_and_property/7638/manchester_housing_strategy/2

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Post-Covid crisis how should the Private Rented Sector change?

The Covid crisis exposes weaknesses at the heart of our housing system. The emergency ‘all in’ policy for rough sleepers, temporary eviction ban, lifting of Local Housing Allowance rates are all life-saving measures.  But we should all be ashamed that our housing system is so broken that such interventions were needed.  

Access to a safe, secure and affordable home is no longer available to hundreds of thousands of children and their families.  Our whole housing system has to change and alongside national investment in genuinely affordable homes, major reforms to the private rented sector must be a core part of that change. 

Labour Housing Group Patron Karen Buck MP, has done outstanding work on improving rights for renters, including bringing forward the Homes for Human Habitation Act in 2019.  Labour needs to campaign for a private rented sector where renters pay a fair rent, are treated decently by their landlord, get their repairs done on time and can put down roots in a community. 

There is hope that this is a moment to reflect on the powerful impact that our housing situation has on our health and inequalities in our housing system but this Tory Government is not bringing forward the legislation needed. For a decent and fair recovery, where no-one is left behind, we need urgent measures to keep renters safe and a programme of long-term reforms.

Renters need secure homes – this is better for them and for economic recovery.  It is a huge relief for renters that the eviction ban has been extended to the end of August but there is so much more to do.  Following years of collective action, the Government has scheduled the Renters Reform Bill, but we must continue to press them and our representatives in Parliament to make sure that it is debated and enacted as soon as possible.  The sooner that Section 21 ends, the sooner that tenants can feel secure in putting down roots in their community.

Private renters have very few rights to information about their landlord or new home.  It is not right that renters cannot check whether landlords have met certain standards.  Mayor Sadiq Khan’s blue print for renters in London sets out how we can improve access to information for renters and we should campaign for devolution to local and regional authorities to establish accountability locally for landlords.  For Labour activists, preparing for local elections in May 2021 will be a key moment to speak to private renters, listen to their experiences and work on local policies to support private renters.

As a local Councillor, I know just how hard it is to use the legislation available so that repairs are done on time, homes are properly maintained and renters are treated decently.  The powers to take action on these issues rest mostly with local authorities who have endured a decade now of funding cuts.  For a fully functioning private rented sector, which works for renters, landlords and the economy, we need a transparent and standardised funding settlement for local authority enforcement services.

The connection between housing and health was cemented in public policy nearly 150 years ago in 1885 in the Royal Commission on the Housing of Working Classes.  This relationship was maintained when Nye Bevan became the Minister for Health and Housing in 1945.  The Covid crisis reminds us just how linked our health is to our housing. We cannot afford to wait another 75 years before this connection is renewed in policy. 

Many renters report not just a detrimental impact of insecure housing on their physical health but also a strain on their mental health.  Not only are some of our most vulnerable households living in insecure homes but many of the key-workers who care for us, feed us and nurse us are spending their already low wages on private rented homes with very few rights.  We urgently need transformation of the private rented sector, for a recovery that leaves no-one behind.

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Rachel Blake</span></strong>
Rachel Blake

Rachel is the Deputy Mayor for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. She was elected to represent the Labour Party for Bow East Ward in May 2014 and appointed to Cabinet in July 2015.

Rachel has held Cabinet Member roles for Regeneration, Planning, and Air Quality. Rachel is now the Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Well-being.

She has previously been called in as an expert witness to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on its inquiry into the long-term delivery of social and affordable rented housing.

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Can we move on from the “traditional architecture is better/worse than modern styles” debate, please?

If new developments were only pleasing to the eye, say Britain’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission advising Government, nimbyism would cease and housing supply could finally reach the levels demanded by a growing and more affluent population[1]. The inaugural chair of this intriguing commission boldly suggested that if we built “as our Georgian and Victorian forebears built [. . . ]. All objections to new building would slip away in the sheer relief of the public”[2]. Even Prince Charles, in a similar spirit, put forward ten principles for urban growth and architecture that emphasize tradition and aesthetics[3].

When governments and princes occupy themselves with beauty, economists surely need no justification for taking a closer look as well? Does the “traditional is good, modern is bad” definition of beauty truly reflects the preferences of home-buyers? Do “normal people” indeed despise the modern aesthetics imposed on them by detached elites? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could solve the housing crisis with such an easy cure?

In a new study[4], Erik B. Johnson of the University of Alabama and I try to teach computers to look at buildings a bit more like humans do. Bringing together machine learning techniques and Google Street View images, we can identify the architectural vintage of residential buildings, broadly classifying each home in a city into styles: Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, Interwar, Postwar, Contemporary or Revival (derided as fake traditional by some). Subsequently, we empirically search for price differences associated with these styles in housing sales. If aesthetics were as strong a force in the built environment as claimed, we should indeed find a significant effect on property prices.

The short summary of our paper is: No, home buyers are not willing to pay more for new houses built in traditional styles and also not for homes surrounded by new homes with historic facades. This lack of appreciation makes it unlikely that nymbyism will evaporate just because planners finally see the light and return to old aesthetics.

Sure, UK households prefer more central urban locations that tend to co-incide with Georgian or Victorian styles over postwar neighborhoods further out. Also, the more spacious gardens and green spaces often found in historic developments are sought-after and valued. Some (including me) like the charm and authenticity of drafty Late Victorian bay windows and rather narrow staircases. A few surely appreciate “good” architecture (which we cannot quantify at the moment). These differences in the quality and location are why old buildings often sell for more – and the premium cannot be cheaply transferred to new buildings simply by following traditional style guides.

For Cambridge, our study area, we first analyse the sales prices of all transactions between January 1995 and October 2018 and indeed confirm higher sales prices for older vintages: Georgian and Late Victorian/Edwardian homes sell for significantly more than Contemporary homes, which again are valued more than Postwar beauties. Given the sparse information the Land Registry provides on each transaction we cannot rule out that these price differentials are simply caused by differences in quality that our empirical models do not pick up.

It is more meaningful to compare new homes that look old (revival architecture) and new homes that have a contemporary exterior. Both have similar “inner values” and footprints. Here, we do not detect a significant price difference.

Are traditional-looking new buildings better neighbours? Or rather: Do contemporary facades really depress the value of surrounding properties, a concern often raised in planning hearings? Again, the data suggest no significant differences between revival and contemporary exteriors.

Training a machine learning model to classify houses into broad architectural styles turned out to be a relatively straight-forward process. In follow-up work, some of my talented graduate students are working on more challenging topics: How closely can we capture aesthetic preferences of individual home-owners? Does “one taste fit all”, as the bland developments put forward by large UK home builders seem to imply? Bit by bit, we inch towards a better understanding of what people really love or hate about the buildings we call homes. So far, all results paint a more colourful and exciting picture than the monochrome views shared by some culture warriors.

In sum, sales data reveal that simplistic aesthetics will not solve the housing crisis: Homebuyers are not willing to pay more for revival styles. Since they don’t value these styles as buyers, why would they welcome buildings in these styles more readily into their neighbourhoods? To be clear, I am not saying that good architecture will not be appreciated in the market. Our findings apply only to broad architectural style oversimplifications of the “modern architecure is good/bad” flavour: They might make  small talk easier at a distant cousin’s wedding – but don’t get your hopes up that they will deliver more homes for “normal people”.

<span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color"><strong>Dr Thies Lindenthal</strong></span>
Dr Thies Lindenthal

Dr Thies Lindenthal is a lecturer for real estate finance at the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge. He research centres around the investment performance of property in the very long run (e.g. 1500–2020) and he explores machine learning techniques in real estate research.

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[1]     The Economist (2018). “The line of beauty”. In: The Economist. https://www.economist.com/britain/2018/11/17/how-to-defeat-nimbyism-build-more-beautiful-houses

[2]     Scruton, Roger (2018). “The Fabric of the City”. https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/The-Fabric-of-the-City.pdf.

[3]     HRH The Prince of Wales (2014). “Facing up to the future: Prince Charles on 21st century architecture”. In: Architectural Review. https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/facing-up-to-the-future-prince-charles-on-21st-century-architecture/8674119.article

[4]     Lindenthal T. and E. Johnson (working paper). “Machine Learning, Architectural Styles and Property Values”. ttps://www.crerc.landecon.cam.ac.uk/files-and-documents/crerc-wp-2020-03-lindenthal.pdf

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Keeping Everyone In

Chesterfield; many of you will know Chesterfield as home to the Crooked Spire and gateway to the Peak District National Park. Some will know it has a proud history of engineering based on the North Derbyshire Coalfield. Eric Varley and Tony Benn represented the town in Parliament in the latter part of the 20th century. Toby Perkins has been the MP for Chesterfield since 2010. In December 2019 the constituency became a little dot of red in a sea of blue just south of Sheffield.

When I became the first woman Leader of Chesterfield Borough Council in 2017 the issue crying out for my attention was the rise in rough sleeping. Whilst the number of rough sleepers was insignificant when compared with London and nearby cities their needs were as complex and the associated anti-social behaviour created a continuous stream of complaints from residents, town centre businesses and visitors.  Photos of sleeping bags and other paraphernalia next to the town’s coach station adorned the local press on a weekly basis.

The cause of this was a range of factors coming together. Some of the most common were drug or alcohol dependency, mental health issues or benefit changes, particularly the recent introduction of Universal Credit. We also knew that Chesterfield was attracting rough sleepers who saw it as a safer option than being in some of the surrounding cities. The generosity of local people, giving food, clothing and other items, combined with the lower risk of violence towards them, meant that some rough sleepers specifically came to Chesterfield.

In the same way that there was no one cause, equally there was no one easy solution. One thing clear to me was that, as the new Council Leader, I needed to act. One homeless rough sleeper was one too many.  A collaborative approach was needed.  So, I approached Hardyal Dhindsa, Derbyshire’s Labour Police and Crime Commissioner, who I knew was tackling a similar problem in Derby. Together with Toby Perkins we set up the Chesterfield Town Centre Summit.  This summit, chaired by Hardyal, brought together all the public bodies (e.g. police, Chesterfield Borough and Derbyshire County councils, NHS, Probation…), the voluntary and faith sectors and the business community to tackle all the issues.

The group’s work is focused on three linked areas: Enforcement, Treatment and Support & Campaigning, for instance against government welfare reforms and for strengthening legislation against “legal highs” among other issues which had undoubtedly impacted on the situation on the streets.  By working together, the various agencies avoided duplication and identified any areas where support was not currently provided so that both could be addressed.

Our greatest success was the establishment of a Winter Night Shelter co-ordinated by Derby City Mission. Whilst tragic cases of homeless people dying on the streets were being reported daily, every night through the coldest months we were able to offer hot meals, sleeping bags, health checks and conversation. The shelter was hosted by a different church on a fixed rota, so it was not too onerous a commitment for one church’s congregation and volunteers. 

Chesterfield Borough Council, alongside two neighbouring districts, supported this work through its funding of voluntary agencies. We built a strong working relationship with local homelessness charity, Pathways, and others who support the hard-to-reach homeless.

Within Chesterfield council itself, our Homelessness Prevention Team works to provide accommodation for anyone who needs it and is a key player in the North Derbyshire Homelessness Forum, which brings together a range of agencies who are working to prevent homelessness and support people who are rough sleeping.

Little did we know when we closed the doors on our second successful year of the shelter’s operation at the beginning of March this year that the collaborative multi-agency working model developed out of the Town Centre Summit and the North Derbyshire Homelessness Forum would serve us so well during the COVID 19 Pandemic in responding to the government’s demand to bring “Everyone In”.

Led by Chesterfield Borough Council’s Homeless team manager, Derbyshire’s councils have brought in 80 people so far (as at beginning of June 2020), with the majority having been placed in hotel accommodation.

Some of those placed have already been found longer term accommodation, and a recovery plan has already been written to deliver intensive support to individuals experiencing overlapping and challenging issues such as offending, drug and alcohol misuse and poor mental health.

Those placed have been given three hot meals a day and it is hoped that, for some, this stability will give them a chance to seek a more permanent change, especially as support to everyone will continue.

We are now at a crossroads because the hotel accommodation, although effective, cannot be retained beyond the end of June 2020.

Chesterfield Borough Council has therefore led on the development of Derbyshire councils’ “Keeping Everyone In” recovery plan, which has now been submitted to the Government. The plan will ensure that we have the resources to re-house as many people as we can on a permanent basis, whilst continuing to offer the necessary essential support.

The rapid collective response right at the start of the pandemic and our transition now to recovery was only possible due to initiatives such as the Town Centre Summit and the long-standing Derbyshire Homelessness Forum. 

I would also argue that this type of response is only possible when there is clear, decisive political leadership such as that demonstrated by Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner Hardyal Dhindsa, Toby Perkins MP and myself.

Labour leading the way and making a difference to people’s lives. 

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Councillor Tricia Gilby</span></strong>
Councillor Tricia Gilby

Tricia Gilby is the first woman Leader of Chesterfield Borough Council and a Labour Councillor for Brimington South.

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Housing is key to tackling the UK’s loneliness epidemic

This year’s Loneliness Awareness Week could not have come at a more important time. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the UK had a loneliness epidemic. But the outbreak has drastically worsened and brought into sharper focus the feelings of loneliness felt by people of different ages. The latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the equivalent of 7.4 million people across Great Britain said their wellbeing had been affected by feeling lonely in the previous seven days.

Despite this, the last few months have also given us many inspiring moments of social connection, even at a time of physical distancing. The coronavirus crisis has brought communities together and shown our capacity to reach out across social and generational divides. From mutual aid groups to young people sending letters and poems to older care home residents, we seem to have realised what is really important to us: connection and belonging.

Our politicians must act quickly to build on this momentum and create a more socially connected country for the long-term. Housing policy has a key role to play. If we don’t feel comfortable and safe in the home we live in, or have a neighbourhood which provides spaces in which to interact with others, then our hopes for more togetherness and less loneliness will be dashed.

Tackling loneliness through housing: the story so far

Fortunately, the Government doesn’t have to start from scratch. In 2018 its official Loneliness Strategy was published, including a number of ideas for housing and planning to strengthen social connections. These included placing community at the heart of planning and design frameworks, funding research into community-led housing initiatives such as co-housing, and ensuring the wider urban design of towns and cities encourages social interaction through thriving high streets, parks, and other communal spaces. Adding loneliness to the portfolio of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) helped cement this focus.

Since then, the Government has released its follow-up annual report on tackling loneliness, published in January 2020. Progress has been made, it said, by including loneliness measures in the English Housing Survey, giving £125,000 towards co-housing research and exploring the role of design in tackling loneliness at various conferences. With all due respect to these measures, they are not going to suffice in the post-coronavirus world. Rather than light-touch nods to loneliness – a piece of research here and a few conference presentations there – the Government need to put social connection at the front and centre of housing policy, and treat it as seriously as the issue deserves.

Tackling loneliness should not be some after-thought; a soft, woolly topic to be explored once all the important issues have been sorted out. Loneliness is as bad for you as 15 cigarettes a day. It kills people.

What more must be done?

Tackling loneliness has got to be made an explicit priority in the planning system, nationally and locally. Though promoting social interaction is mentioned once in the 61-page National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), tackling loneliness as a specific aim is nowhere to be seen. Next time the framework is updated – which may be some years away – the section on ‘promoting healthy and safe communities’ should be updated to include a focus on reducing loneliness. More achievable in the short-term is updated ministerial guidance on the framework, setting out how local authorities can plan for developments which foster social bonds across ages. Local authorities should not only be nudged to think about loneliness in their local plans, but required to do so.

This general emphasis has got to be accompanied by specific examples of schemes which have shown promise. The Government is right to highlight co-housing as one model which can bring people together. Residents often play an integral role in the initial design of the community, which typically consist of private properties with pooled funds for communal resources and facilities. Intergenerational living is increasingly high on the agenda, for instance through integrating general needs housing with housing for older people, retirement villages acting as hubs for the whole community, properties designed for multi-generational living, and simple yet effective design tweaks such as having interconnected gardens between properties, or building windows that look out on to communal courtyards.

It is the design not only of housing but of the wider village, town or city which can make all the difference in bringing people of all ages together. Are there enough good-quality communal spaces such as parks and squares to encourage social interaction? Are there enough benches for people to sit down on and chat? How about level pavements and fewer trip hazards so that older people can walk into town?

Tackling loneliness is not only linked to bridging generational divides, but reducing ethnic and income segregation, too. It’s no good fostering close connections between some groups if others are left out – or worse, stigmatised. Last year’s south London scandal over a private playground that barred poorer children entering from the socially-rented block of flats opposite was a case in point. Thankfully, Henley Homes reversed the policy once their disgraceful approach was splashed across national newspaper pages.

Connecting the economic to the social  

The Henley Homes example points to a broader point: you cannot disentangle the economics of housing from the social connections you may seek to create through it. That is why progressive housing policy will win out when it comes to tackling loneliness. We already know that those on lower incomes are more likely to be lonely. Good-quality social housing can help massively, providing homes people can be proud of and live comfortably in, so they are happy living in their community. Gentrifying developments which reduce the number of socially-rented homes in favour of expensive private flats, forcing people with roots in the local area to leave, are only making matters considerably worse. 

Providing better conditions for private renters is crucial, too – another group more prone to loneliness. The Government should prioritise the development of its framework for longer tenancies for private renters, so they feel more secure in their property and have a better chance to build connections with neighbours in the long run.  

Time for action

The coronavirus crisis has illuminated both the tragic scale of the UK’s loneliness epidemic, and the desire of the young, old and everyone in between to overcome it through stronger social connection. If our streets, neighbourhoods, towns and cities don’t foster feelings of togetherness, then we have no hope.

It’s time for housing policy to respond.

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Sam Dalton</span></strong>
Sam Dalton

Sam is a policy and public affairs professional with expertise in housing, social care, social connection and loneliness. He led an inquiry on strengthening ties between young and old alongside the parliamentary group on social integration, and authored its ‘Healing the Generational Divide’ report published last year.

Sam has written for The Fabian Society and Left Foot Forward, as well as think tanks, social ventures and charities. He led policy workshops for young people at last year’s Millennifest events in London and Bristol.

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Post COVID-19 we must build back better

Commentators from the International Energy Agency, to Green NGO’s as well as a number of leading economists, such as Nick Stern, are calling upon Governments to align their climate change policies with investment in a Post COVID-19 economic recovery by ‘building back better’. As with the Green New Deal this can cover a very broad range of policies and politics. The challenge is to make it relevant, practical and politically achievable.

Many of us have long argued the case for a national programme to retrofit the nation’s homes with practical measures to improve their energy efficiency, cut fuel bills and lift households out of fuel poverty. Now fresh work is showing that to get spending back into voters’ pockets from Blyth to Bridport we should invest in just such a programme.

A new paper from the climate change focused ‘insider’ policy group, E3G, is the latest to highlight:

“Retrofitting buildings to high energy efficiency standards can quickly and reliably ‘level up’ employment opportunities creating 150,000 jobs to 2030 and deliver household savings of £7.5 billion per year that translate into consumer spending”.

‘Investing in a resilient net zero UK recovery’. E3G. May 2020

This spending would, as Labour highlighted at the last election, represent a very real commitment to improving the UK’s housing stock. The question is how to do it.

The Scottish, Welsh and to some extent the Northern Ireland Government all have structured, tax payer funded, energy efficiency programmes. Only England does not.

Here the Tory led coalition introduced the failed ‘Green Deal’ (which was largely a pale imitation of the ‘Pay as You Save’ scheme driven forward by Ed Miliband’s team prior to the 2010 election). Labour’s ‘Warm Front’ went and, following pressure  from the ‘Big 6’ incumbent energy suppliers, the Conservative Government also dramatically cut the consumer funded ‘Energy Company Obligation’ which obliges energy companies to do at least something to lift households out of fuel poverty.

Scotland has a multilevel, multi-year, £280m programme that includes:

  • Warmworks – A tax payer funded national programme rolling out insulation and heating to vulnerable households in the owner occupied and private rented sector. This includes rigorous standards enforcement across the 29 local contracting firms who carry out the work.
  • Area based, ring fenced, funding to Scottish local authorities to retrofit public sector housing using predominantly local contractors.
  • Low interest loans for owner occupiers and others to commission their own work.
  • An overarching and enforceable target to achieve zero carbon homes including.
  • A (new) legal obligation on Private Landlords to significantly improve the energy rating of their property before it can be (re)let.
  • Retained Building Standards as a local authority function.
  • A distributed network of advice centres with a national call centre to access all the programmes.

In England we need a similarly structured programme that not only harnesses the local knowledge of Councils, but also focus on high quality work, backed by effective, training and easy access to all aspects of the programme. The existing national programmes of the devolved nations could be boosted directly with dedicated Treasury funding.

The Labour Party is building of its commitment to a major programme of home insulation and inviting party members and others to respond to its newly launched ‘Green Recovery’ consultation. It emphasizes that in response to the pandemic

“We also need action to combat the economic crisis that is facing so many communities across our country while ensuring that we take bold and ambitious steps to tackle the climate crisis” it concludes that “The impact of coronavirus will be felt sharply over the coming months and we need to be ready to present our plans to government”.

Labour Party Green Recovery Consultation, National Policy Forum 2020

The Chancellor is reputably looking for ‘shovel ready projects’. Boosting job creating action on thermally improving the nation’s housing stock is just such a project. In England from commit to action on the ground would take about 6 months – in Scotland, Wales and North Ireland it would be almost immediate given their existing programmes.

This is essentially about a practical programme of housing improvement that puts jobs and investment into constituencies across the UK and takes us all a long way towards the UK’s legal commitment to a zero carbon future. It is the proverbial win-win for the thousands who would work on the programme, the climate, and significantly the voters who would see the benefit through a warmer home and lower energy bills for the longer term.

Let’s do it!

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">David Green </span></strong>
David Green

David currently acts as Chairman for Warmworks Scotland, PRASEG – the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Renewable and Sustainability Energy, and is an advisor to Energy Consumers Australia.

He co-founded leading fuel poverty charity National Energy Action in 1981, is the former Chief Executive of the federal Clean Energy Council in Australia, and former Chair of the Mayor of London’s Energy Partnership. He has previously worked for Friends of the Earth and the Housing Department of Newcastle City Council.

He writes for Red Brick in a personal capacity.

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Another classic case of do as I say and not as I do

Planning has been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the last two weeks, shining a spotlight on the lack of transparency, the influence of vested interests, and the undermining of local decision-making.

As the new Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning it is my job to hold the government to account, to scrutinise and challenge their work. I’m not here to oppose for opposition’s sake, but to try and push the government into the right place, especially in this current Covid-19 crisis. However, if the process of opposition exposes something fundamentally wrong, then the gloves come off. Fair play is a fundamental British value and we cannot have one rule for a privileged few and another for everyone else. The Jenrick affair, coming hot on the heels of the Cummings scandal, is a classic case of “do as I say not as I do”.

The facts are clear. The Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick gave the go-ahead to a contentious redevelopment project in the Isle of Dogs just weeks after he sat next to Richard Desmond, the developer behind the scheme, at a Conservative party fundraising dinner just before the December General Election. Mr Jenrick has admitted that the application was a topic of conversation that night.

In January, the Housing Secretary approved the planning application for the redevelopment of Westferry Printworks in London’s Docklands, despite advice from his department’s Planning Inspectorate and Tower Hamlets Council that the proposals did not contain sufficient affordable housing. The decision by Mr Jenrick to approve the planning application by Northern & Shell on January 14 came just one day before an increase in the Community Infrastructure Levy was due to be imposed by the council at a cost of £40m to Mr Desmond’s company.

Is the timeline of these events merely a coincidence? Because of Mr Jenrick’s refusal to provide Ministry documents about his decision, we don’t know the answer. It’s vital that papers on Mr Jenrick’s decision-making are now made public. The public need to know that government Ministers are not abusing their power to do favours for billionaire friends and Tory Party donors. Mr Desmond’s company, Northern & Shell, the former owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star newspapers, gave the Tory party £10,000 in 2017.

In an astonishing development, after being taken to court by the local authority, Mr Jenrick accepted that his approval of Northern & Shell’s planning application for the Westferry Printworks was unlawful. In March, Tower Hamlets took legal action against Mr Jenrick’s decision, arguing that the timing of his decision appeared to show bias towards Mr Desmond. Indeed, the former leader of the Conservative Group in Tower Hamlets resigned from the party over the affair.

After the court ordered Mr Jenrick’s department to release the documents, the housing secretary accepted his approval of Northern & Shell’s planning application had been “unlawful by reason of apparent bias” – an act which allowed him to avoid disclosing documents surrounding his decision.

This is not acceptable, and certainly not the end of the matter. Not only has the Secretary of State acted unlawfully but he has contradicted the Nolan Principles and further eroded trust in the planning process. I have now written to the Cabinet Secretary requesting that he investigate this matter.

I await a response.

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Mike Amesbury</span></strong>
Mike Amesbury

Mike Amesbury is the Member of Parliament for Weaver Vale in Cheshire. He was first elected in June 2017 and is currently the Shadow Minister of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

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Owning the debate: Why Labour must replace the missing rungs on the housing ladder

A couple weeks ago now I was fortunate enough to join an online event, run by the Young Fabians and Labour Housing Group, which featured an in-depth conversation with new Labour Shadow Housing Minister Thangam Debbonaire. Having had fairly limited interaction with her before I was pleased to find Thangam bright, engaging and full of ideas for the future of Labour’s policy on housing and homes.

Whilst the event ended up receiving a write-up in LabourList which provoked controversy over Thangam’s opposition to taking on the ‘Cancel the Rent’ policy that many activists have demanded as a response to the coronavirus outbreak, I was far more interested in what she had to say about owning rather than renting. I felt that the shadow minister touched on something particularly powerful when she said that the left ‘needed to be brave’ in making policy for, and understanding that ‘a great many people want to own their own homes’.

I felt this intervention was a particularly astute one to make because it sometimes feels like the debate we have around housing policy on the left too often ignores that innate desire that so many have, not just to be housed but to feel the sense of pride and control that comes from ownership. It seems that there is an underlying sense on the left that if only we could build enough socially rented housing and make it widely enough available that this might solve the nation’s housing issues at a stroke, however there is a good deal of evidence to the contrary. The desire to own a home of one’s own is deep rooted within the British national psyche. Whilst the Germans for instance are a nation of renters – with only 51.5% ownership rate, overall home ownership in England still stood at 64% as of last year, down off a peak of 71% in 2003 but largely unchanged since 2013-14.

Of course, the issue of access to the ‘housing ladder’ is an inherently generational one, as each new generation in turn needs to be given the assistance that is required in taking their first step. No post-war generation has been more let down in this regard than the people that have come to be known as ‘Generation Rent’. This is the term applied to millions of people aged between 25-40 who find themselves priced out of the housing market, with the average house price in England having risen 173% since 1997, with real incomes for young adults in the same time period having gone up only 19%.

Despite these challenges, the desire for ownership among this group remains high with Property Reporter stating in 2018 that  almost half of 25-34-year olds not yet on the housing ladder wanted to be homeowners within the next 10 years. As a member of this generation myself, my sense of this issue was only further sharpened when I recently accepted an offer to work for Pocket Living, an SME developer which delivers affordable homes to first time buyers in London boroughs at a 20% discount. Their schemes have also received support from the Mayor’s office.

Researching them in preparation to take on the role I found it both heartening that they were providing an option for people of my generation to get on that housing ladder, however I was surprised that despite Pocket’s success they remain a fairly unique operator in serving the market, with successive governments having failed to look for solutions nationwide in the way that Sadiq Khan has in London.

In this document, produced to celebrate its 15th anniversary Pocket sets out 15 regulatory changes that its experience of delivery could be useful in improving the market for first time buyers:

https://www.pocketliving.com/design/ebook

These are just some suggestions from an organisation that has a track record of delivery in the area and there will doubtless be many more to come as Labour looks to set the programme on homes that it takes to the nation in 2024. What is certain though is that Labour cannot afford to fail to engage with the dreams and aspirations of voters in this area. There is perhaps a temptation on the left to suggest that getting into policy that promotes home ownership and strays from social renting is somehow a right-wing approach, however it is not remotely clear that both cannot be worked on hand in hand.

For too long, whether going back to Thatcher on Right to Buy or even in the current Government’s First Homes policy, Labour has surrendered ground to the right on the issue of home ownership. Thangam Debbonaire is correct, especially in light of the new challenges posed by fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, to say that Labour must ‘be brave’ in this area and build a policy prospectus that speaks to people’s desire not just to be housed, but to own a home and make it their own.

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Mark Mcvitie</span></strong>
Mark Mcvitie

Mark is a communications professional who has worked in political campaigns as well as the financial services and housing sectors. He is a regular on the Young Fabians podcast, discussing the latest developments on the left through a policy and communications lens.

In addition, he sits on the executive committee of campaign group Labour for a European Future and is a member of Labour Housing Group. He has previously written for The Independent and Huff Post UK.

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We built the Spitfires. Now we can build the houses.

Seventy-five years ago, Britain was in the midst of a General Election that would transform the country for generations to come. And Clement Attlee’s 1945 landslide General Election victory was built on the foundations of Labour’s housing, construction and town planning policies.

To mark the 75th anniversary of Labour’s 1945 General Election victory, Paul Dimoldenberg introduces his new book:

‘Cheer Churchill. Vote Labour’ – The story of the 1945 General Election.

In 1945, the British people took a very practical view of the future. They wanted a decent home, a job and not to have to worry when they became ill or fell on hard times. In short, they wanted a better life and saw Labour as the vehicle through which these aspirations could be achieved.

Labour promised ‘bread and butter’ improvements which secured the votes of working-class and middle-class families. With over 2 million houses damaged or destroyed by the blitz, over half of them in London, the scale of destruction throughout Britain explained the desperate need for new homes.  Again, and again, homes and jobs were foremost in the minds of voters.  Labour recognized these as the priorities. And the voters believed Labour would provide them. The Labour Manifesto promised:

“Housing will be one of the greatest and one of the earliest tests of a Government’s real determination to put the nation first. Labour’s pledge is firm and direct – it will proceed with a housing programme with the maximum practical speed until every family in this island has a good standard of accommodation. That may well mean centralising and pooling of building materials and components by the State, together with price control. If that is necessary to get the houses as it was necessary to get the guns and planes, Labour is ready.

And housing ought to be dealt with in relation to good town planning – pleasant surroundings, attractive lay-out, efficient utility services, including the necessary transport facilities.

There should be a Ministry of Housing and Planning combining the housing powers of the Ministry of Health with the planning powers of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning; and there must be a firm and united Government policy to enable the Ministry of Works to function as an efficient instrument in the service of all departments with building needs and of the nation as a whole.”

In Cardiff, James Callaghan recalled:

“Most questions were about demobilisation from the Forces or housing shortages. In my innocence and good faith, I promised rapid action on both and during the campaign my main slogan became: ‘We built the Spitfires. Now we can build the houses’”.  

In Bishop Auckland, Hugh Dalton remembered:

“The big issues were pensions, housing and fear of a return to pre-war unemployment.”

At Ebbw Vale, Aneurin Bevan, picking up on the mood of the times, argued that:

“Low rents, spacious homes fitted with all the labour-saving appliances invented by modern domestic science, can be made available to all only if the task of house-building is organized on a national plan”.

In Preston, the Conservative MP, Julian Amery, described the grim reality for many:

“Much the biggest issue was housing. No new houses had been built since the war and there was fearful overcrowding. It was quite common to find eleven or twelve people sleeping in a single room, and in many of the slum districts there was virtually no sanitation”.

Winston Churchill’s daughter, Sarah, describes the day-to-day impulses that led many to put their trust in Labour. In a letter to her father, she explained that:

“The people I know who are Labour, don’t vote Labour for ideals or belief, but simply because life has been hard for them, often an unequal struggle, and they think that only by voting Labour will their daily struggle become easier. They are all decent people who want an easier and gayer life”.

The historians are in full agreement. A.J.P. Taylor recognized the main concerns of the electorate:

“They cared only for their own future: first housing, and then full employment and social security. Here Labour offered a convincing programme”.

Arthur Marwick concurred:

“Public opinion polls showed that the issue which most concerned people was housing. Labour effectively presented itself as the party most strongly committed to social reform.”

Angus Calder agrees:

“Labour had been elected, above all, on the issue of housing”.

This was ‘retail politics’ at its most potent. As the historian Paul Addison concludes in ‘The Road to 1945’:

“A simple but vital point about the 1945 election is that Labour put the material needs of the average family above all else in its campaign”.

And Labour delivered. Over the next 5 years, Labour built one million new homes.

Of course, the situation in 2020 is radically different to the challenges of 1945. But there are some real parallels.

Recent analysis by Nathaniel Barker for ‘Inside Housing’ has revealed that areas with the most overcrowded housing have been worst hit by COVID-19. The area with the highest COVID-19 death rate (144.3 deaths per 100,00) and the biggest housing overcrowding problem (25.2% of homes are overcrowded) – is Newham in east London. Just as with the wartime blitz, there is a clear London focus to the problems caused by overcrowding. Of the 30 areas with the highest percentages of households living in overcrowded conditions, Barker explains:

“26 are in London. Part of that can likely be explained by the acute affordable housing shortages in the city”

Over the next few years, Labour needs to learn from the 1945 experience, put the needs of the people at the forefront and develop a social housing programme for the 2020s and beyond.

‘Cheer Churchill. Vote Labour’ – The story of the 1945 General Election is available in e-book and paperback format at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08975HFS7/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_4Xc2Eb4B0AVT1 via @AmazonUK

All proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to Foodbanks in Westminster.

<span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color"><strong>Paul Dimoldenberg</strong></span>
Paul Dimoldenberg

Paul Dimoldenberg was first elected to Westminster City Council in 1982. He was Leader of the Labour Opposition Group from 1987-1990 and from 2004-2015. He is the author of ‘The Westminster Whistleblowers’, published by Politicos in 2006, which tells the story of the Westminster ‘Homes for Votes’ scandal of the 1980s and 1990s.

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When averages don’t have to be so mean

With the Tories on the proverbial housing policy ropes, Labour must continue to focus on progressive policies that result in more support for households at lower parts of the income distribution. To roll with the punches Labour must call for an increase in the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) to the median 50th percentile, scrap the discriminatory age restrictions to the Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR), and put those most in need at the heart of any emergency coronavirus plan and comprehensive vision for the future.

Shelter have announced we have a public health crisis on top of an already existing housing emergency. This is because millions of tenants, whether they be private, social, or intermediate, are presently not working due to the fact society has lost confidence in our ability to move around without catching a killer infection. This has happened in the middle of an existential housing emergency that has been significantly exacerbated by the Tories over the past decade.

Vicky Foxcroft, Lewisham Deptford MP, brutally exposed this in the Commons in Julylast year:

“Local housing allowance is supposed to cover the lowest 30% of market rents, but research by Shelter found that that is not possible in 97% of England. For example, in south-east London, local housing allowance will cover only the bottom 10% of rents. We have a housing crisis across the country and local housing allowance is not fit for purpose. Does the Minister agree that it must be raised to reflect the true cost of renting?”

House of Commons | Hansard | 01 July 2019 | Local Housing Allowance

Virendra Sharma, Ealing Southall MP, also explained how a staggering number of members in his constituency had a very real risk of homelessness as they struggle, month after month, to make up the shortfall between their rent and the level of LHA.  

For example, a single young person under the age of 35 in Ealing Southall would have found just 1% of shared properties affordable with the SAR available in 2018. A family with children looking for a two-bedroom property would find the LHA rate covered just 6% of the private market. This would mean they would have to find an extra £150 per month to afford a property within the cheapest third.

In 2019, 88,330 households in England found themselves living in temporary accommodation, a figure tragically up from 48,010 in 2010. That is equivalent to the size of a town like Grimsby, Guildford, or St Albans often having to live in bed and breakfast accommodation in the first instance, until something more suitable can be found.

Figure 1: Total Number of Households in Temporary Accommodation 31st December 2019
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness

The Tories have at least attempted to unwind the horrendous consequences of their own bad policy through reforming “no fault” evictions, removing Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, and making changes to the grounds for possession. Yet much of this will be a mere sticking a plaster over what are much deeper structural issues, with pressure on the housing benefit system having been exacerbated from years of weak wage growth and domestic price rises

The severity of the impact on households’ living standards has been to an extent normally associated with a severe recession, which has left the huge shortfalls between LHA and the true cost of renting one borne by the poorest.  The result has left the country ill-prepared to face such a crisis, particularly as it braces itself for the biggest economic slump in over 300 years. This was not what Labour had it mind when it introduced LHA back in 2008 following evidence based research.

After an initial three-year pathfinder Labour set the LHA rate at the median 50th percentile of the local private market. Shared Accommodation Rates were applicable for those under 25, which meant that single claimants under 25 were forced to share with others rather than live on their own. It had an aim to give a flat fair allowance for the local area and enabled people to have choice. LHA was argued to increase incentivisation to work, namely through greater clarity of in-work benefits, and most importantly it was simple.

LHA was slashed in 2011 to the 30th percentile by the Coalition government, with the Liberal Democrats crooning it in, like mice singing in the cats choir. A year later LHA rates were delinked from market rents and increases there forth capped by CPI. An uncaring cap on benefits was further introduced in 2012 following George Osborne’s famous Conservative Party conference speech where he asked “where is the fairness?”.

Three years later George Osborne thought it was still not fair enough and pushed the benefit cap even lower in his Summer Budget of 2015.  He brought this alongside an extension of SAR up to the under 35s, with a 5-year freeze to LHA announced in 2016.

Turns out George’s idea of “fairness” leaves poor families with mounting debt and pushes children into deeper poverty, with many families financial circumstances having worsened following the introduction of the policy. In large part having been left with an average gap between rent and housing benefit of £3,750 per year.

That said, evidence from Crisis identified that investing in LHA rates to cover 30% would prevent 6,000 households from becoming homeless over a three year period. It would also lift 32,000 households out of poverty, which would include 35,000 children. Off the back of this research, and vociferous campaigning by Labour Party politicians the Tories buckled, and ended their very own LHA freeze one year early.

Hurrah!

Announced in January 2020 under The Social Security (Coronavirus) (Further Measures) Regulations 2020 the Government stated it would relink the LHA to the 30th percentile, which was set at the same level seen in the 2019 Labour Party manifesto.

But was this rate high enough?

The Liberal Democrats thought not. Their manifesto included a call to increase LHA in line with average rents in an area. Though fell short on whether this was the mean average, or the more robust to statistical outliers mean average. In any case nobody was going to believe that commitment with the Liberal Democrats having been the hand maiden for such cuts in the first place.

Yet their policymakers did have a point, as a move back to the average rent level for LHA is one backed by credible research. In August 2019 Crisis demonstrated a higher cost benefit could be achieved if LHA was restored to the 50th percentile rate in areas where the rates fall behind rents the most, and to 30th percentile everywhere else. The research also gave a nod to restoring all the rates to the cheapest half, which would bring the highest overall benefit. In effect restoring LHA to the progressive median average, not seen since the last Labour government, would be more equitable and more cost effective.

This begs the question why previously Labour only sought an increase to the 30th percentile when, under the previous Labour Government, the median average left fewer people choosing between eating or paying rent. Shelter have recently joining the ranks call for an increase in housing benefit to cover the cost of average rents and to lift of the benefit cap.

Labour’s recent announcements chime well. Thangam Debbonaire’s emergency five-point plan echoed such calls through laying out increases to LHA rates and an improved provision of Universal Credit. Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Jonathan Reynolds, also called for urgent action on social security. Through a suspension of the benefit cap and removing the savings and two-child limit to Universal Credit.

At least now renters can take comfort both Labour and the experts are on their side.

Sadly, the Tories will be difficult to move on from the below average LHA rate and age discriminatory SAR policy, which will remain unfair and incredibly impudent towards those on the breadline. Yet Labour must continue to be bolder than its Tory counterparts on housing. For it to work effectively for a just society, it must call for an increase in LHA to the median 50th percentile rate, not the mean, and in the interest of fairness push for the abolishment of age discriminatory housing benefit criteria.

<strong><span class="has-inline-color has-accent-color">Chris Worrall</span></strong>
Chris Worrall

Co-Editor of Red Brick. Non-Executive Director of Housing for Women. Labour Housing Group, Executive Committee. Exploring innovative new models in housing with care in the for Guild Living. Previously Investment and Finance Manager at Quintain and Thor Equities.

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