Red Brick

Cathy Davis’s new book, ‘Finance for Housing: An Introduction’ is much more than its title implies. It is essentially a text book about the economics, politics, and history of housing in the UK with a focus on finance.
Unlike so many other authors, Davis does not hide her own politics, but she is careful to separate out her descriptions and analysis of the housing system from her own views. Each point is well evidenced and comprehensively referenced so any reader can look for more on any topic raised. Davis explains housing issues through the medium of economic theory but without becoming too technical for the general reader. In particular, she provides an excellent summary of the development of the 2007/08 financial collapse and the consequent credit crunch (lest we forget).
It is possible to either read or pass over the sometimes detailed descriptions of financial mechanisms without losing the narrative. Each section is a well-told story of how and why policy developed in the way it did and why we have ended up where we are. Davis weaves the financial, economic, political and historical threads together in a readable and accessible style – and I like the way she introduces quotes from Charles Dickens, George Orwell, or Clement Atlee in support of a point. She uses her historical sweep to illustrate just how often the current policy positions of the Coalition are an exaggerated (if callous) extension of trends that have been in place sometimes for decades (for example rising rents and dependence on private capital).
The book is simply structured, with an introductory overview looking at the political choices lying behind housing finance decisions and the impact of the global financial crisis. The main part of the book describes British housing tenure by tenure. She then selects three issues around housing costs for separate discussion – marginal owner occupation, rent setting, and housing benefit. Given the current importance of housebuilding, it would have been interesting to see a chapter that pulled together the information on the economics and financing of housebuilding, which is there but dotted around the book. The other features I thought deserved a little more emphasis are the demographic and societal changes that underlie housing demand, and the Treasury conventions that discriminate against public housing. But then again the book would have been longer!
Given how strong the book’s analysis is, and the passion with which Davis’s views shine through, I was a little disappointed by the final chapter, intended as a discussion of the sustainability of our housing system. There is a short critique of austerity and arguments in favour of the proposition that class divisions are re-emerging as the poor get poorer, privatisation becomes more entrenched, and geographical concentrations of wealth and poverty become more pronounced. There is a slightly hesitant section on whether owner-occupation will remain as one of the drivers of consumer capitalism. Finally, there is a call for the abandonment of ideas of the minimal state and something of a clarion call to return to the radicalism in Government of Clement Attlee.
I was surprised that most of these discussions ended with yet more, presumably rhetorical, questions. By this point I really wanted to know more about what the author thought should be done. I was looking for the policy prescriptions on the nutty questions posed throughout the book: what should be done about private landlordism, should we favour a stronger safety net for poorer home owners, how should rents be set, how should new affordable homes be subsidised, and so on. Instead there were just a few ideas on a more interventionist state, a different approach to dealing with the deficit, an increase in income tax, and a new council house building programme, which seemed a little random.
It may be that Davis thinks her views are already well known through her other publications, for example her 2010 book ‘Did it have to be like this? A socialist critique of New Labour’s performance’ and her 2012 book called ‘Let’s Build the Houses – Quick!’ (both with Alan Wigfield).
‘Finance for Housing’ was written for housing politics and social policy students and staff, and my quibbles are minor: it is a mine of useful information and argument that will be of interest to anyone wanting to know more about the housing system, and so is highly recommended.
‘Finance for Housing: An Introduction’ By Cathy Davis, published July 2013 by the Policy Press, Paperback £24.99. www.policypress.co.uk.

It was a rare moment. Grant Shapps said something with which Red Brick agreed. It was back in January 2011 and Shapps was all over the newspapers and TV news with his views on the housing market, and in particular house prices.

Shapps said that Ministers wanted to ‘engineer’ a period of house price stability, using the example of prices rising 2% a year while incomes rose 4%. The Mail at the time quoted him saying that homeowners should see their house as a home and not an investment and should no longer rely on their houses to fund their retirement.

Ignoring the fact that his figures would mean real terms price reductions, this could have been a crucial turning point in housing policy. House price rises favour those who already own, stable prices favour those who want to own but are not yet in a position to do so. For a nanosecond we glimpsed the possibility that all of the political parties could agree on a major long term housing policy objective.

“The main thing everyone requires for their subsistence is a roof over their head and when that basic human need becomes too expensive for average citizens to afford, something is out of kilter. I think the answer is house-price stability.” Grant Shapps, January 2011.

Of course we were skeptical. The implication is that the state would intervene to achieve the stability objective or at least avoid policies that would inflate prices further.

Two and a bit years later, our skepticism has proved well founded. With the self-same Grant Shapps now chairman of the Conservative Party, we are headed for the opposite end of the line. Rising house prices is now a central feature of the Government’s attempt to convince the population that things are getting better. Existing owners (the majority) feel better when they think they are sitting on an asset that is appreciating, and it might even encourage them to spend a little more on household effects. They quickly forget that it makes it more likely that the back bedroom will be home to their son or daughter for many years yet.

The media are the Government’s accomplices. I will bother you with only one example, from the Express: ‘Booming Britain: Joy for millions as house prices rise’ But I should also mention that rising house prices was included in a list of ‘good news stories’ on BBC News by the normally even-handed Hugh Pym.

Apart from those who directly benefit, it is hard to find anyone who believes that Government’s ‘help to buy’ scheme will boost housing supply rather than increase prices (by raising general demand at a time of shortage). The general view of economists and housing market analysts, from Shelter to the International Monetary Fund, is that the Government is ‘fuelling a boom’. The less than progressive Institute of Directors called it ‘mad’:

“The housing market needs help to supply, not help to buy, and the extension of this scheme is very dangerous. Government guarantees will not increase the supply of homes, but they will drive up prices at a time when it seems likely that house prices are already over-valued. There is a real risk that the housing market will become dependent on the underwriting by government.  The world must have gone mad for us to now be discussing endless taxpayer guarantees for mortgages.” Graham Leach, Institute of Directors

The Priced Out campaign called it simply ‘a moronic policy’ and said: ‘Help to Buy should really be called ‘Help to Sell’, as the main winners will be developers and existing homeowners’. They stress the point that, as a large share of mortgage money is going into buy to let, further excluding first time buyers, the policy is pricing out families even more.

Research by Hometrack suggests that it is not just the prime central London market that is racing ahead like Usain Bolt, it is the traditionally cheaper areas of inner London, like Hackney and Lambeth, where the biggest increases are being experienced. Regional differences are of growing importance. Rightmove shows how national averages mask disparate trends in the regions, with house price growth in some regions overshadowing real term falls in others. The flight from London of young potential home owners, added to the forced removal of many people through benefits caps (including for those in work) is not well understood. But the impact of all these changes on the other regions has scarcely been considered.

In light of all this, we would like to suggest that Grant Shapps, Housing Minister circa 2011, drops a line to Grant Shapps, Tory Chairman 2013, reminding him of the sensible thing he once said about house price stability.

Normally the Taxpayers’ Alliance website is only worth a visit to raise a smile and to see what people pretending to be on the taxpayers’ side are up to. I say pretend because of course everyone is a taxpayer: those who do not pay income tax pay more regressive taxes like VAT, but the TPA prefer a more clearcut world where ‘we’ the taxpayers pay for ‘them’ the non-taxpayers through profligate public spending.
What caught my eye was a new TPA campaign called ‘Stamp Out Stamp Duty’ backed up by a research note that contained some interesting data. In 2012-13 over £4 billion stamp duty was collected, of which £3.6 billion came from transactions on properties with values over £250,000 – only a  quarter of sales by number. What is intriguing is the district-level  figures they provide, showing just how enormously the tax take varies from area to area.  In Westminster, 3,630 transactions in 2012-13 produced total stamp duty revenue of £295,706,632.  97% of transactions were at the rate of 3% or higher (ie property value £250,000 or above).
Towards the other end of the scale, the 2,955 transactions in Stoke-on-Trent produced a total tax take of only £892,259. Only 29 transactions – 1% – attracted tax at 3% or more and these still produced 30% of the total tax take.
Obviously everywhere else was in between these two extremes, but the figures confirmed my suspicions about why the Mayor of London wants to get his hands on the London share of stamp duty income and why Westminster City Council has also recently called for a slice of the tax to remain locally. It is clearly the case that the people of Stoke, and other places with lower property values, would lose out on such a deal, but since when did the Mayor bother about that? It is worth noting that Taxpayers’ Alliance policies always seem to benefit the most well-off, in this case those that can afford the most expensive houses. Equally, by removing a significant source of public income, the most likely losers would be those on low incomes who need public services.
Writing in the Guardian, economist Jonathan Portes made the point that it is fair enough to call for an end to stamp duty – a terrible tax, he calls it – but only if it is replaced by a fairer form of property tax. He argues that simple abolition, apart from leaving a hole in the public finances, would also be a hugely regressive move. Because stamp duty is only levied when a property is sold, removal would tend to push up prices (people would pay less tax and could afford more house). The UK would be a fairer and more productive country with a higher tax burden on land and property, not a lower one. As council tax also charges more to poorer people in relation to their property values, it should also be considered for replacement.
Portes calls for a revamped council tax levied on current property values with no cap. This would, he says, achieve the same aims as the ‘Mansion Tax’ and in a simpler way. Identified problems – like the impact on asset-rich but income-poor pensioners – could be dealt with, for example by deferring payments until the property is sold. And he observes that the people who would lose from such a new council tax would be the vested interests that the Taxpayers’ Alliance actually represents.
There are a lot of proposals around at the moment that look to make property and land taxation fairer. I doubt if he TPA will support any of the progressive ones, but this is a big debate that must be had.

It’s surely not coincidence that within the last couple of weeks we’ve had headlines in the Daily Mail blaming immigrants for the housing shortage and the Times front page calling for a curb on their claiming benefits (including housing).  While you can read articles debunking each of these here and here, few of the people who’ve noticed the Mail or Times headlines will bother to check the facts.
We don’t know if the government was behind these newspaper stories, but we do know they are busy stirring up anti-migrant feeling with their Go home or face arrest adverts.  The ending next December of the current restrictions that apply to Bulgarians and Romanians is being hyped as a potential disaster despite little evidence that many people from either country are poised to come to the UK.  But there is enough manufactured risk of this happening to require David Cameron to promise a ‘clampdown’ on recent migrants accessing social housing within two years of their arrival, even if the latest census figures show that two-thirds of migrants who arrived in the last decade are in private lettings, and common sense should tell him that within two years hardly any will qualify for social housing.
The plans to force private landlords to make immigration checks (on over 1.2 million new lettings per year in England alone) are clearly as much about deterring legitimate migrants as they are about catching undocumented ones.  The government impact study doesn’t even consider the possibility that the new rules might force legal migrants into the hands of unscrupulous landlords who are less likely to bother with the checks.  Of course, the government says it is tackling the bad landlords through its beds in sheds initiative, but the press coverage it generates invariably links the campaign to removing illegal immigrants, rather than highlighting action to help the plight of those forced to live in such poor conditions.  And far more migrants are living in dodgy conventional housing than are consigned to beds in sheds.
In a thoughtful blog this week, Alex Marsh asks whether ‘aggressive intolerance’ has become a substitute for an aggressive housing policy.  He reminds us of something that Red Brick pointed out in response to a speech by Theresa May last year, that most housing demand is driven by the indigenous population.  Yes, it’s true that net migration has a significant long-term effect, but if migration were to stop completely tomorrow we still wouldn’t be building anywhere near enough houses to meet the country’s needs.  And as Alex says, the impact of immigration on the housing market is ‘as much – if not more – about super-rich individuals purchasing top end properties as an investment, thereby inflating house prices’ as it is about low-income migrants in the private rented sector.
As he goes on to say:
‘…the poisonous nature of the immigration debate allows an alternative “common sense” explanation for the housing problem to take hold. If you venture below the line on just about any online post relating to the UK’s housing problem – which, in general terms, isn’t something I’d recommend – it does not take long before a commenter will state that the origins of the housing crisis lie in uncontrolled immigration: if only we shut the borders and sent all these undesirable foreigners home then there would be plenty of homes for all the British people who have the right to live here.’
No one in government has said this, of course, but they don’t need to.  There are plenty in the media and elsewhere that will interpret a ‘clampdown’ or Cameron saying (in March) ‘new migrants should not expect to be given a home on arrival’ as the signal to blame immigrants for the housing problem and create the new ‘common sense’ that Alex talks about.
Marsh suggests that housing researchers need to more actively expose what the real drivers of housing demand are and force politicians to engage with the issue.  This might help, but it’s difficult to see it having much effect by itself.  We badly need the Labour front bench both to keep on talking about the failure to build enough houses and to say why they are really needed.  It’s convenient for government when they haven’t solved a problem to blame the victims (or the last government).  However, in this case the real cause of the housing crisis is pretty obvious, if people can only be convinced to look beyond the headlines – and if the government’s use of the race card is exposed as being just that.

Agreeing with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is becoming a bit of a habit. But, after his Wonga versus credit unions comments, this was what he tweeted in response to Lord Howell’s view that the ‘desolate’ North East would be a good place to start ‘fracking’: “North-east England very beautiful, rugged, welcoming, inspiring, historic, advancing, not ‘desolate’ as was said in House of Lords today.”
Former Leader of Newcastle City Council Lord Beecham, now a Labour peer, said: “Neville Chamberlain spoke of pre-war Czechoslovakia as ‘a faraway country of which we know nothing’. Lord Howell clearly has a similar view on the north-east and his comments once again highlight the Tories’ problem with the north.”
I am as uncertain about fracking as the next person, but I am certain that I wouldn’t trust Tories like Howell to get it right. So here are some of my favourite scenes of desolation to help us to sit and reflect on the issues.
Bamburgh Castle

Some iconic bridges

Sunset over very desolate South Shields

High Force, Co Durham

Lindisfarne. Aidan found it tranquil, or was it desolate.  More on Lindisfarne here.

Dunstanburgh Castle – old ruin suitable for fracking

St James’ Park. Don’t tell Mike Ashley about fracking. It will just give him ideas.

A niche housing blog like Red Brick doesn’t expect any story to go viral – that’s reserved for royalty, pop stars and funny animals doing tricks. But in October 2011 our attack on a programme on welfare researched and presented by Radio 4’s John Humphrys became our biggest ever hit.
The Red Brick piece – ‘John Humphrys, hubris, and welfare dependency’ – criticised the basic premise of his hour-long BBC documentary – a year in the making, we were told, and involving a (no doubt) all-expenses paid trip to the USA – that ‘a dependency culture has emerged….. A sense of entitlement. A sense that the State owes us a living. A sense that not only is it possible to get something for nothing but that we have a right to do so.’
We pointed out that Humphrys apparently got paid nearly £400,000 a year to be rude to people on the radio in the mornings, which didn’t seem to make him particularly qualified to comment on the incomes or behaviour of the extremely poor.
But our ire was stirred most by the fact that he trailed his programme in a feature article in the Daily Mail built around a large picture of the fictional Gallagher family and the headline ‘Our Shameless Society’. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew what the Mail stands for, he knew what message the ‘shameless’ imagery would convey, and he knew which audience he was pandering to.
Now, nearly 2 years later, in a rare victory against the forces of darkness, a complaint made by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) about the programme has been upheld by the BBC Trust, which concluded that the programme breached its rules on impartiality and accuracy.
CPAG Director Alison Garnham commented: “This programme, like too many media stories, failed the public by swallowing wholesale the evidence-free myth of a ‘dependency culture’ in which unemployment and rising benefit spending is the fault of the unemployed.’
The Trust however rejected part of the complaint that Humphrys had presented a personal view in contravention of guidelines for senior current affairs presenters on controversial issues, stating that the sentiments he expressed were: “…judgements based on his personal experience rather than opinions which could be interpreted as a personal view.”
This is arrant nonsense and a whitewash. The programme started with a highly personal recollection by Humphrys of his own background in Splott in Wales and his poor upbringing; it followed him around as he personally visited various (I would suggest carefully researched and selected) claimants to discover their attitudes; and it included a visit to the Centre for Social Justice, the think tank most closely associated with the views and prejudices of Iain Duncan Smith, but no other organisation with a countervailing view – for example CPAG. As most of the controversial comments were made by Humphrys direct to camera, to claim that this was not a personal view is ludicrous. I cannot think that this conclusion is anything other than an attempt to draw a line to prevent calls being made for Humphrys to be sacked. 

Based on watching the programme and reading the Daily Mail piece that launched it, I think that CPAG were spot on in their complaint:

The programme explored the topic from within a partisan and politically interested framing that purports there to be a ‘benefits dependency culture’ and an ‘age of entitlement’.
This framing precluded the exploration of opposing views and relevant factual information, and led to the mischaracterisation of benefit claimants interviewed by John Humphrys as ‘victims of the benefit system’ despite their own focus on problems such as low pay and the high cost of childcare.
The failure to include any expert voices from the UK with views diverging from those of the government compounded the inaccuracy and impartiality and prevented salient facts being brought to the audience’s attention.
These failings resulted in breaches of BBC Editorial Guidelines on both accuracy and impartiality.
Furthermore, the programme gave the appearance of presenting the personal views of one of its senior news and current affairs presenters, in contravention of guidelines. This was compounded by the publication of an article in the national press, authored by the presenter, John Humphrys, and with the headline “JOHN HUMPHRYS: How our welfare system has created an age of entitlement’ (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052749/Our-Shameless-society-How-welfare-state-created-age-entitlement.html).

This programme was a biased, sensationalised and prejudiced attempt to portray people in receipt of benefits as undeserving scroungers. It was obviously a personal view developed by the presenter, who took a year to research and prepare the programme for broadcast. . The BBC has admitted that it breached its standards for impartiality and accuracy. Their argument that it did not breach their standards relating to senior presenters, who normally have the trust of the public, is flimsy in the extreme.
John Humphrys should be sacked.

Today’s High Court judgement against disabled people seeking to overturn the bedroom tax, on the grounds that it is discriminatory and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, is a depressing outcome for all the families involved.
Lawyers for the families have, however, already committed to appealing against the ruling, arguing that the discriminatory impact of the tax on people with disabilities cannot be justified and is unlawful. The statement by the families’ solicitors is an interesting summary of the case and can be found here. We wish the families well: they are fighting on behalf of hundreds of thousands of others.
It is now four months since the Tax was imposed. The evidence from around the country suggests that the impact has been even greater than was feared beforehand, as the National Housing Federation’s David Orr has argued, as detailed assessments from organisations like Aragon Housing have substantiated, and as gruesome case histories from all around the country have piled up (see for example the excellent @Welfare__Reform twitter feed).
Despite its steadfast defence of its ‘spare room subsidy’ policy, the Government has made several U turns on the details already, and it has become so complicated that even David Cameron appears not to know what the policy actually is, as Patrick Butler has documented for the Guardian. Even following this Court success for the Government, they have been embarrassed into making an extra £35 million available for discretionary payments – nowhere near enough, but a sign that the continuous pressure is having an impact.
Although the Court was highly critical of DWP on some aspects of the case, especially in relation to a previous judgement in relation to children, the department responded in the style of its boss, Iain Duncan Smith – never mind the facts, just repeat the same blithering nonsense.
The core of their argument is that applying the bedroom tax to the social rented sector is ‘fair’ because similar rules have applied to private tenants since around 1989. But this ignores two facts. First, since 1989 Governments of both persuasions have argued that the bedroom limits were not appropriate or needed in the social rented sector because housing allocations were subject to Government and landlord policies and procedures which did not apply to the private rented sector: there were levers other than benefits which could be used to ensure a proper size fit between households and accommodation. Secondly, the impact of the bedroom rules on disabled people in the private rented sector has been controversial since they were introduced. Indeed, the rules have been the subject of previous Government promises of remedial action to remove some of the unfairness. (Excellent background material on the policy can be found in this House of Commons Library briefing).
So, the summary position is this: 1) set unfair rules in the private sector; 2) spend 20 years arguing that these should not be extended to the social sector because the system of letting homes in the two sectors is so different; 3) suddenly decide to apply similar rules to the social sector; 4) argue that the rules in the social sector are fair because they are the same as the private sector.
The bedroom tax affects disabled people in a hugely disproportionate manner. In any normal parlance it is a discriminatory policy. The policy is not fair in either sector, and two wrongs do not make a right.

Two recent reports readdress the proposal that higher earners in social housing should pay more rent. What should happen next?
Pete Redman’s report, House-Keeping, for the Centre for London, builds on earlier work that the centre published, called Home-Work. Both pieces argue that higher-earning tenants should pay higher rents. The crucial difference from the government’s proposals, set out in the Pay to Stay consultation in June last year, is that the increases would be phased in above a quite low income level, rather than applying in a single leap once income passes £60,000.  Apart from arguing that this provides less of a disincentive to earn more (since the rent increase kicks in gradually), Redman also calculates that the extra income will be more significant and lead to greater reinvestment in new housing.
The Centre for London proposals are controversial but at least they argue from first principles and are evidence-based. The latest paper on the issue from the government is, however, much more disappointing, in two respects.  It’s a Summary of Responses to the DCLG’s Pay to Stay consultation, which also outlines what the government plans to do next.  The first disappointment is that many in the sector are reported to have gone along with the proposal to charge higher rents to tenants earning over £60,000, which is surprising given the much-discussed practical obstacles and the potential costs of collecting relatively small amounts of extra income. The second disappointment is that the government doesn’t seem to have heard the practical objections that did arise, and is simply marching forward with its plans in their earlier form.
In particular, although it mentions the idea of phasing in higher rents as income increases, it rejects it, sticking to a single £60,000 income threshold. Above this market rents will apply if the landlord chooses to implement the scheme (which remains voluntary). This is despite the fact that the government’s estimates of numbers of tenants with these high incomes have fallen.  Originally it was thought there were between 12,000 and 34,000 tenants earning more than £60,000; now it’s down to between 11,000 and 21,000. (It now seems quite likely that many landlords will realise they have so few higher earners that the scheme is not worthwhile anyway.)
One of the main objections to all this is that it adds to the growing incoherence of rent policy in the social sector that Red Brick has discussed before.  We could soon have a situation, particularly in London, where market rents are being charged to ‘high’ earners, while most social tenants pay rents that are about half market levels, but at the same time a growing minority who are poorer than the average pay up to 80% of market rents because their homes have been let at ‘affordable’ rents. How sensible is that?
And this is only one aspect of the incoherence of rent policy: we haven’t mentioned the arbitrary nature of the bedroom tax or overall benefit caps, or the sad attempt at an overall policy outlined in the Spending Review, where rents for similar properties will continue to vary widely between landlords because Labour’s policy of rent convergence in the sector is being halted before its aims have been achieved.
There is an urgent need for a proper review of rents policy, proceeding from a policy discussion about affordability and what rent-setting is intending to achieve.  The issues were summarised earlier this year in a CIH publication We need to talk about rents.  We do need to talk about rents, and it needs to be a more coherent discussion than the one in which the coalition government is stutteringly engaged.

Today is the centenary of the birth of Michael Foot, Leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983 – and during the infamous defeat at the 1983 General Election.
Foot is remembered fondly in the Labour Party for his intelligence, oratory, brilliant writing, wit and charm, and not just for the 1983 defeat. Most of the blame for that is attached to the 1983 Labour Manifesto, which is only ever mentioned alongside Gerald Kaufman’s description of it as ‘the longest suicide note in history’. Foot may well have been the only person capable of holding the Labour Party together at the time. He believed that the only credible Manifesto was one based on the resolutions passed at Labour Conference, and that is what it was. Responsibility should therefore be widely shared.
The most controversial items in the Manifesto – unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving the EEC, and nationalisation – have dominated the subsequent debate about its merits. But it also included a raft of progressive policies, many of which ultimately became law under New Labour – including devolution to the nations, freedom of information, equal pay and other rights for women, and more action to end racial discrimination. Reading through 30 years on, I think its economic and social policies deserve a more generous retrospective review. It is tempting to agree with Neil Clark, writing a Guardian Opinion piece, about what really happened in that Election: ‘In truth the real “suicide note” in 1983 election was the Conservative party manifesto, which, with its dogmatic espousal of free-market policies, put on us on the road we are today: a debt-ridden, privatised service economy with massive differentials in wealth; a country where the majority of people – working class and middle class – are exploited by an unaccountable, transnational corporate and financial elite.’
The housing policies in the 1983 Manifesto reflect different housing priorities from now: although there were significant housing shortages, there was a general belief that the they could be tackled and overcome. No-one imagined that affordable housebuilding would suffer so spectacularly and for so long under Thatcher, nor that it would fail to revive in the subsequent 30 years. So, although the Manifesto had a commitment to restore the council housebuilding programme ended by Thatcher, the priority for the promised ‘immediate 50 per cent increase in (council) housing investment programmes’ was given to ‘the urgent repair and replacement of run-down estates.’ And there was a commitment on rents: ‘We will freeze all rents for the first full year’.
Then, as now, Labour sought a balanced housing tenure policy rather than a damaging obsession with one tenure: ‘Our aim is a decent home for all with real freedom of choice between renting and owning, on terms people can afford. Labour governments have done more than any others to assist owner occupiers; and we will extend this by giving special assistance to first-time buyers and council tenants.’
Only 6 years after the ground breaking homelessness legislation, and before most people became aware of the bed and breakfast crisis about to explode, Labour committed to go further by extending the ‘priority’ groups under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, including more single people, and generally to strengthen the rights of homeless people.
There was a hugely different attitude towards council tenants from the one that has become common today: in addition to a national action programme to repair and improve or replace run-down estates, there was a commitment to ‘strengthen tenants’ rights on security, repairs and improvements, access to files, exchanges, transfers, moves between local authority areas, and rehousing rights on breakdown of relationship’ and a progressive reform agenda: ‘to encourage more responsive and decentralised housing management and maintenance, and promote tenant participation and democracy, including housing co-operatives’.
The policy towards the private rented sector reflected the then common view that absentee private landlordism would become a thing of the past, with home ownership and social renting became the norm. There was a commitment to transfer homes from private landlords to social landlords and home owners, a commitment to repeal shorthold tenure, and policies to strengthen tenants’ right on deposits and harassment. And a right to repair was promised for all tenants irrespective of landlord.
On land, the Manifesto promised to put the interests of local people ahead of property speculators through positive land planning and by enabling councils to buy (non owner occupied) development land at current use value. That would put the cat among the pigeons nowadays.
If I can’t go so far as to agree with Neil Clark’s view that the 1983 Manifesto was ‘not so suicidal after all’, he may be right that it was the missed opportunity to derail the neo-liberal bandwagon. The Manifesto certainly had a strong Keynesian ethic, and a commitment to social justice and ‘affordable housing for all’ that it is helpful to reflect on now.

What goes up may come down.  Only 10 years ago, the growth of home ownership was believed to be inexorable: people would talk of it reaching 90% of households. But without much advance warning, it peaked in 2003 and has fallen from 71% of households then to 65% now (figures for England).
Virtually all net housing growth in the last 10 years has been in private renting. Although the number of home owners has remained fairly constant, in the mid 14 millions of households, and the number of social renters has also been fairly constant at around 3.8m, the number of private renters has grown from 2.2 million to 3.8 million households (in percentage terms from 10.8% in 2003 to 17.4% in 2011-12).  Now people talk about the growth in private renting being inexorable…..
This truly astonishing turnaround in the housing market – which pre-dated and was not caused by the global financial crisis, even if the credit crunch reinforced the trends – has raised a whole new set of dilemmas for policy-makers. Some issues remain the same – the crap end of the market is still crap, and still nothing much gets done about it. But new issues have emerged, and I would highlight four:

• Many of the households coming into the sector are families with children who have been excluded from social renting or from home ownership, but the arrangements in the sector have not changed to reflect the different needs of such families.
• Many new landlords are in a position where the non-payment of rent by their tenant means the non-payment of a mortgage for them – despite high rents and a long-term capital gain they are not necessarily coining it in week by week. Although buying to rent is often described as being ‘the new pension fund’, we still know very little about the new landlords, and in particular whether they are in it for the long term or just until some other investment with a better return comes along.
• Many new landlords are also amateurs at the job and are more likely to be dependant on a lettings agent or manager. Lettings agents in particular are not the friend of the landlord or the tenant – they want turnover because finding new tenants brings in the cash and the possibility of a rent hike, whereas landlords’ business plans are easily wrecked by an unplanned void period. Tenants face an ever-increasing set of fees and charges to access a home.
• One of the effects of the clamp-down on local housing allowances has been to push people out of the more expensive areas into the ‘cheaper’ areas (everything is relative). This has had little or no effect on rents in the expensive areas, where demand is strong, but it is having the effect of pushing rents up in the cheaper areas because there are now more people competing for the same number of ‘affordable’ vacancies.

The upshot of all this is that some new thinking has been needed about the sector. The old remedies – leaving it all to the unrestrained free market, as favoured by the right, and stringent rent control advocated on the left – will not do the job and carry too much risk. There is no silver bullet and a package of new policies are needed. A lot of good policy work has been done (but only outside Government, I am sorry to say) by a range of organisations and think tanks, including landlords’ organisations and responsible agents, and something resembling a consensus is beginning to emerge with the broad aim of stabilising and modernising the sector. This approach is about moderating rent increases, encouraging far longer tenancies, registering landlords, heavily regulating lettings agencies, and reinforcing the role of local authorities in improving standards and stamping out rogues.
Today’s report from the CLG Committee of the House of Commons on the private rented sector is firmly in this new mainstream. Its analysis seems spot on and its key recommendations – around better regulation, the key role of local authorities, ending sharp practice, better court procedures when things go wrong, and changing the culture of the sector so it becomes more family-friendly – allied to the Committee’s continuous exhortation for more house building in all tenures – reflect the emerging view about the best way forward.
Whilst the Government has its head in the sand – the last people to recognise that an unfettered free market doesn’t work for landlords or tenants – Labour has done a lot of work in this area and the Shadow Housing Minister, Jack Dromey, is to be commended for taking time over the detail, consulting widely with all parties, and publishing intelligent policy papers about what should be done.
To get housing right over the next decade, we have to take action in all tenures: we have to enable more people to become home owners, we have to provide far more social rented housing at genuinely affordable rents, but we also have to find a new stable settlement for private renting which is fair to tenants and landlords: homes at good standards on fair terms.