The Conservative Party’s proposal to allow the sell-off of housing association homes has been criticised from the left – and from the right.
Lib Dem Nick Barlow writes on his blog:
Back in 2010, the Tories made a big play of how they would transform the country through localism and the Big Society. Localism would free communities from the dead hand of Whitehall controlling everything, while the Big Society would encourage a new era of civic involvement, getting people involved in community organisations, allowing them to really make a difference.
If the first leaks from their 2015 manifesto are anything to go by, both those ideas have been thrown into the bin, which has then been set on fire and the ashes scattered to the four winds to prevent any prospect of them ever coming back together again. Community-based organisations are to be ripped apart by Government policy, while councils will have to follow diktats from the centre in order to raise the money to fund this dismemberment.
———-
Housing associations are private non-profit organisations, generally run by members of the community they?re based in and providing a valuable service in providing social housing. The proposed Tory policy will declare them to be nothing more than another arm of the state, in order to compel them to sell off their housing at below the market rate. Yes, because we?re not suffering enough problems in the housing market thanks to forcing councils to sell their stock off cheaply, they?ll go on to compound the error by doing the same to housing associations. Remember, these aren?t government-owned organisations, and yet the Tories ? the usual champions of property rights ? seem to see no problem in riding roughshod over someone else?s in pursuit of their policy.(Of course, this policy won?t apply to other private landlords, and tenants in the private rented sector won?t get any right to buy their homes no matter how long they?ve lived there. Perhaps if Housing Associations were allowed to donate to the Tories, they?d have been exempted from this policy too?)
Even the most barking policy to sell assets off at below market price has a cost, and in order to fund this, they?ve decided to show how much they?ve decided localism was a bad idea by committing to a true policy of anti-localism…..
Meanwhile in the Daily Telegraph, Julia Hartley-Brewer describes the idea as “dumb, economically illiterate and ? even worse ? morally wrong.”
…by helping those 1.3 million lucky souls in housing association homes, Mr Cameron won?t do anything to help the many more unlucky ones who aren?t and, indeed, will actually make life that little bit harder for everyone else who wants to share in his property-owning dream.
Selling off social housing at a discount is great for those individual families who benefit, but are these really the families that are most in need of the state?s help?
Why should people who have already enjoyed the benefits of secure tenancies in affordable social housing now be granted extra help worth up to ?102,000 (and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds more when they later sell their property) while millions of others get absolutely nothing?
———
First of all, many of those 1.3 million tenants – the poorest – won?t be in any position to get a mortgage to buy their home, regardless of the generous discounts, while those who are able to take advantage of the scheme are unlikely to be those in the direst need.Indeed, there are many people living in housing association homes who are not in any need at all and are more than capable of renting in the private sector or buying their own home but are understandably reluctant to relinquish a home with a subsidised rent.
———
This, then, is a policy which (almost by definition) will help people who are in a better position to help themselves than many others.It?s all very well rewarding hard work but what about all the many millions of other families who also work hard on low incomes but who are stuck paying sky-high private sector rents? What about their dreams of home ownership?
This one is difficult , it is a British culture ( to own your own home) , even if it is only an investment to cover the care you will need in your later years ( because the NHS
is’nt coping with it now – let alone in the future ).
But selling off Social / Council Housing will inevitably take away the bottom rungs of
the housing market for subsequent children/ grandchildren – who instead will pay rent with no return and preclude the ability to save enough to buy themselves.
Playing this card now is clearly a short-term vote catcher which we will rue in the longer-term , and illustrates what is wrong with the way we are governed – we need
well thought out complete strategies , not sound bites.
The whole policy is not only badly thought through but is also reckless. We have seen the damage to the housing sector caused by the original right to buy. That policy was social engineering at its worst. A bid to break the power of local authorities to administer themselves. And by ensuring that all receipts went to the treasury and were not ring fenced for rebuilding, created the housing crisis we have today. Yes an I crease in population does put pressure in housing but the destruction of the social housing sector has ensured that young people could only rent privately at vastly inflated levels or buy houses they couldn’t afford. Twenty years on we see the next assault on the housing sector by a tory government. This time it’s different though as they are proposing to sell off housing belonging to someone else. Or is it? Local Authority Housing was funded by an element of the rent paid by tenants over the life of the loan (60 years) and so was actually paid for by the people living in them. Sales generated considerable funding that was taken by the treasury for other uses…not rebuilding to replace. Now we are seeing a similar thing with a twist. Housing Associations are not for profit companies many with charitable status and they own the very houses that the govt is trying to sell off at a discount (when it’s actually not legal for a HA house to be sold off at less than market value). Yes the Govt have said that receipts will be used for rebuilding (they remember the furore about the local authorities being mugged in the 80’s). But can they force someone to sell off their possessions? No they cannot. HA’s have stated that they will take legal action against the Govt if they pursue this policy and rightly so…after all wouldn’t you if someone tried to sell your house from under you? A faux pas,of stella magnitude…watch this,space
I agree Peter.
I imagine there will be a few Tory councillors around the country considering switching parties or going independent.
I agree, this is a very badly thought through Policy, but what can you expect. Jim has said we need proper, long term, complete policies not sound bites, and I agree, but when any administration only has a guarantee of 5 years at the most, knowing that long term policies are probably going to be dumped by their rivals if they get in next time, why should they bother. What we need is far more cross party agreement on long term policies so that proper, thought out, strategies can be put into place.
On the housing situation, I would really like to see all parties agree on everyone in social housing being re-assessed every 5 years to see if they still need it. That would avoid the situation where you have people like the late Bob Crow, or Levi Roots, the Reggae Reggae Sauce millionaire, living in council accommodation whilst families on very low incomes have to do with one or two rooms B&B because there is no house vacant for them.
Indeed so Chris. Thatchers blunder was serious enough but this one defies logic. I am not against RTB per se as long as everyone unit lost is replaced as was labour’s intention when RTB was first introduced in small print during (i think) Wilson government. It was in the small print for a reason as it was intended to provide for those who had spend most,or their lives in a house to actually own it. It wasn’t meant to provide developers with a cheap cash cow as Thatchers greed culture created. Wilson thought it fair that if you had paid rent for 50 years you should have the opportunity to buy it. 80’s developers actually bought rent books off tenants, applied for RTB and paid the tenants huge sums to move out. I can see this happening again and it really must be stopped. The HA’s will do that by way of legal challenge.
Policy on the back of a fag packet (sorry probably an opera programme) as usual. Please don’t anyone from any other party make any comment all of them are playing leapfrog to buy votes. Quite honestly they all disgust me with their cynicism
They (politicians) must think we are stupid falling for the usual sound bites,unfortunately some do .It was Thatchers morality that ruined the economy and instilled the selfish instincts that were latent in all human kind.Was not helped by Blair and his cronies carrying on in the same way seemed to forget where the Labour Party ,s roots were. Privitisation of the Utilities and Transport was an economic nonsense and hardly is good value for money.
Christine @4 & Alistair @7 – absolutely right ………
The short-term sound bite approach is designed to connect with the ” selfish instincts that are latent in human kind” , each day now they become more blatant , currently –
You bailed out Lloyds Bank , now you can have the spoils via a special deal ( ie: you can pay again ) – we all know which big city firms and their mates will scoop this up.
JIM the negative ( as a foil to Oz the positive ????).