Category: Blog Post

The Government’s plan to introduce a caravan tax on static as well as mobile caravans, reduced by U-turn from 20% to 5% VAT, brought much needed attention to the mobile homes industry, which has been quietly growing over the last few years.
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee has been holding an inquiry into ‘park homes’ and their report is published this morning.  It shows an industry urgently in need of reform and regulation to protect residents from malpractice.

Jon Cruddas’ first interview since joining the Shadow Cabinet to coordinate the Policy Review was encouraging.  In particular I like the fact that he seems to be able to look beyond the sterile argument about whether Labour should appeal to middle England or its traditional support.  He knows Labour needs to appeal to both and that low turnout amongst Labour voters is just as damaging as failing to attract floaters.  He is portrayed as a man of the left but his flirtation with Blue Labour and his support for David Miliband as Leader show a much more complex political position.  He has a sensible critique of the Labour Government, working on the inside for Tony Blair at Downing Street before becoming alienated from the ‘policies and language’ in the later years.

Long-suffering readers of Red Brick are used to being recommended long and, it has to be said, occasionally boring texts on housing.  We like to keep you up to date with the latest research and even try to read it ourselves to give you a flavour of what it concludes.
But if you could only read one thing, once again the most authoritative and useful document of the year is the mid-year Briefing published to complement the Annual UK Housing Review.  The Briefing is only some 20 pages long but it races round the whole housing racecourse commenting on all the major trends and giving the latest housing facts.  Written by Hal Pawson and Steve Wilcox, published by Chartered Institute of Housing and the Orbit Group, it starts with wider economic prospects, summarises changes in the housing market, and examines latest trends in housebuilding, affordability, welfare reforms, and homelessness.  It also takes a look at trends in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and points the way to more detailed sources if they are needed.

By Monimbo
Red Brick reported earlier in the week on the letter sent by Jack Dromey to the UK Statistics Authority, criticising Grant Shapps’ use of housing statistics.  The minister’s response, which accuses Dromey of indulging in an ‘incomprehensible rant’, suggests that Mr Shapps might not have been deterred by the shadow minister’s warning. His rather cavalier approach to figures is revealed again in his reply.

You may not be the type of person who studies tables of figures, few of us are, but I would ask you to have a look at the tables on new housebuilding published today by the government quango the Homes and Communities Agency.
They show housing starts – ie when a builder takes charge of a site and cuts the first sod – and completions (ie handed over for occupation) – under various headings over the past few years.  I am asking you to look at the tables so you can see all the figures and make your own assessment of the veracity of various claims about them.

The Communities and Local Government department used to pride itself in its rigorous approach to ‘evidence based policy making’.  Now it has become the seat of ‘policy based evidence making’, at least on the Ministerial corridor.
The latest examples have been Eric Pickles’ latest pronouncements on the ‘troubled families’ programme and Grant Shapps’ increasingly distant relationship with accurate statistics.

The housing market in this country is dysfunctional and it is the responsibility of Government to intervene to ensure that market mechanisms work as well as they can do to achieve society’s goals.   Two recent examples from very different parts of the country illustrate the problems that free markets can create and the difficulty in getting intervention right.

You won’t see much about it in most of the Tory press, but rarely has the visit of an American economist changed the terms of political debate as much as that of the Nobel Prize for Economics winner Paul Krugman last week (in the UK to promote his new book, ‘End This Depression Now!’).
His appearance on Newsnight, when he exposed the economic stupidity and political crassness of two Tory opponents, has become the talk of the town and a mild antidote to Jubilee fever.

In 1952 the winning goal in the FA Cup Final was scored by a Chilean, George Robledo.  Newcastle United beat Arsenal 1-0.
There’s a bit of a fuss on this weekend.  But 60 years ago, when Queen Liz II was ascending the throne, not only did Newcastle win the cup but my family was busy moving into a new council house in Newcastle.   It was a ‘Bevan House’, built to the standards demanded by Aneurin Bevan when he was Minister of Health (and Housing) in the Attlee Government.  Space and amenity standards were excellent and the estate was a great place to grow up.  (For those that know the city, it was near the Kenton Bar – which has just been demolished – on the fringes of Cowgate.)  The average council rent in 1952 was 18s per week – equivalent to around £25 today.

On more occasions than I can count, we have advocated on Red Brick (for example here and here and here) that the most effective way of boosting growth in the economy is to get some money, public or private, into housing construction.
We have also commented on the extraordinary process of quantitative easing (QE) and how hundreds of billions of pounds have been flushed into the economy without any clear idea of where the money will end up and what benefit it would bring in terms of lending in the productive economy.