Terry McGrenera says successive governments have failed in their duty to meet Britain’s housing needs
WHY has this Labour Government found it so difficult to come up with a comprehensive housing strategy since it came to power in 1997? Is it because ministers regard the issue as an embarrassment?
Shortly after taking up residence in Number 10 Downing Street, Tony Blair visited to the Holly Street Estate in Hackney. He was there to launch his Government’s New Deal for Communities Initiative. The wall in front of which he was photographed was demolished just hours later by the same builders with whom he posed. As former Tory housing minister David Curry subsequently pointed out, the regeneration of the Holly Street Estate had actually begun under John Major’s Government.
Again, soon after he became Prime Minister, Blair went to the Aylesbury Estate in Peckham to tell its residents they had not been forgotten. The truth is that, during the ’97 election campaign, his strategists told him to forget about London’s council estates and concentrate on wooing middle-class voters in the south of England if he wanted to take power. Voters in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire were more important than Aylesbury, Peckham. That’s a view to which some
in the Labour leadership still cling, even as their hopes of securing a fourth term in office evaporate.
Just before the 2005 general election, housing magazine Roof reviewed the Government’s housing record after seven years. The 2002 Homeless Act and the reduction in the numbers of people sleeping rough was welcomed. But there were also notable failures. The number of households in temporary accommodation had doubled, the amount of new social housing being built had fallen to its lowest level since the Second World War and a property price boom had wrecked the hopes of many young people in search of their first home.
The Government asked architect Lord Rogers to set up a taskforce to come up with a strategy for the renaissance of Britain’s cities. Lord Rogers’ report was published in July 1999 and contained 100 recommendations. By November the following year, Lord Rogers was accusing ministers of being “disappointingly negative” about its key proposals. They were, he believed, not prepared to come up with the money necessary to put his proposals into practice.
It was worse than that. In February 2003, the central government housing grant to local authorities was withdrawn. This meant councils no longer had a key role as the provider of new homes.
At the same time, the Government was encouraging local authorities to dispose of their existing housing stock. However, in July 2003, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee concluded that stock transfers constituted a more expensive way of bringing council housing up to the decent homes standard than allowing the work to be done by the local authorities themselves.
The withdrawal of local government grants and the inability of housing associations to fill the gap had a dramatic effect on the housing market. The Greater London Authority’s economics unit commissioned a report on the situation. Market Failure and the Housing Market was published in May 2003. The most significant sentence in it was: “Those in need of housing are much less likely to have a strong voice in the political process compared to those who are already housed.”
After Tony Blair stepped down as Prime Minister, Shelter commented that his legacy would be a deepening of the housing crisis. Blair presided over a widening gap between housing supply and demand, meaning some enjoyed a great boost to their personal wealth as property prices spiralled, while many others have been left behind with no hope of a decent home of their own. The charity added that, unless Gordon Brown tackled the housing crisis by funding more social housing, his legacy could be just as lamentable. Sadly, Brown’s “rescue package” for the housing market, announced earlier this month, was described by one commentator as sending a canoe to aid the Titanic.
In addition, Brown’s proposal to spend £200 million to buy unsold homes, unveiled in May this year, was criticised as no more than a political gesture, since it would only help around 1,000 families. Brown has a habit of trying to pass off half-hearted responses to pressing social and economic problems as dramatic policy shifts.
So the perception people have of him is that he has failed to grasp the opportunities and meet the challenges that being Prime Minister presents, even though he was desperate to get the job. However, because of the housing crisis, he still has a chance to act in such a way that could end doubts about his future while going a long way to address the housing situation in a positive, practical and fair way.
After months of dithering, the Government finally decided to take Northern Rock it into public ownership. At least £50 billion of public money guaranteed its survival. In the United States, George Bush’s administration nationalised mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to save them from collapse.
It is going to take proper public investment and not a hotchpotch of half-measures to build the homes we need in Britain.
John Ruskin, the Victorian socialist, once declared that it was “the first duty of the state to see that every child born therein shall be well housed”. The current Prime Minister and his predecessor in Number 10 Downing Street have failed in that duty.
It will be ironic if the sub-prime housing crisis in America and the drive to own your home encouraged by successive Tory and Labour governments over the past 30 years has initiated the train of events that brings the house down on Gordon Brown’s Government.
Terry McGrenera is editor of The Green Paper – politics for the planet and its peopleWHY has this Labour Government found it so difficult to come up with a comprehensive housing strategy since it came to power in 1997? Is it because ministers regard the issue as an embarrassment?
Shortly after taking up residence in Number 10 Downing Street, Tony Blair visited to the Holly Street Estate in Hackney. He was there to launch his Government’s New Deal for Communities Initiative. The wall in front of which he was photographed was demolished just hours later by the same builders with whom he posed. As former Tory housing minister David Curry subsequently pointed out, the regeneration of the Holly Street Estate had actually begun under John Major’s Government.
Again, soon after he became Prime Minister, Blair went to the Aylesbury Estate in Peckham to tell its residents they had not been forgotten. The truth is that, during the ’97 election campaign, his strategists told him to forget about London’s council estates and concentrate on wooing middle-class voters in the south of England if he wanted to take power. Voters in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire were more important than Aylesbury, Peckham. That’s a view to which some
in the Labour leadership still cling, even as their hopes of securing a fourth term in office evaporate.
Just before the 2005 general election, housing magazine Roof reviewed the Government’s housing record after seven years. The 2002 Homeless Act and the reduction in the numbers of people sleeping rough was welcomed. But there were also notable failures. The number of households in temporary accommodation had doubled, the amount of new social housing being built had fallen to its lowest level since the Second World War and a property price boom had wrecked the hopes of many young people in search of their first home.
The Government asked architect Lord Rogers to set up a taskforce to come up with a strategy for the renaissance of Britain’s cities. Lord Rogers’ report was published in July 1999 and contained 100 recommendations. By November the following year, Lord Rogers was accusing ministers of being “disappointingly negative” about its key proposals. They were, he believed, not prepared to come up with the money necessary to put his proposals into practice.
It was worse than that. In February 2003, the central government housing grant to local authorities was withdrawn. This meant councils no longer had a key role as the provider of new homes.
At the same time, the Government was encouraging local authorities to dispose of their existing housing stock. However, in July 2003, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee concluded that stock transfers constituted a more expensive way of bringing council housing up to the decent homes standard than allowing the work to be done by the local authorities themselves.
The withdrawal of local government grants and the inability of housing associations to fill the gap had a dramatic effect on the housing market. The Greater London Authority’s economics unit commissioned a report on the situation. Market Failure and the Housing Market was published in May 2003. The most significant sentence in it was: “Those in need of housing are much less likely to have a strong voice in the political process compared to those who are already housed.”
After Tony Blair stepped down as Prime Minister, Shelter commented that his legacy would be a deepening of the housing crisis. Blair presided over a widening gap between housing supply and demand, meaning some enjoyed a great boost to their personal wealth as property prices spiralled, while many others have been left behind with no hope of a decent home of their own. The charity added that, unless Gordon Brown tackled the housing crisis by funding more social housing, his legacy could be just as lamentable. Sadly, Brown’s “rescue package” for the housing market, announced earlier this month, was described by one commentator as sending a canoe to aid the Titanic.
In addition, Brown’s proposal to spend £200 million to buy unsold homes, unveiled in May this year, was criticised as no more than a political gesture, since it would only help around 1,000 families. Brown has a habit of trying to pass off half-hearted responses to pressing social and economic problems as dramatic policy shifts.
So the perception people have of him is that he has failed to grasp the opportunities and meet the challenges that being Prime Minister presents, even though he was desperate to get the job. However, because of the housing crisis, he still has a chance to act in such a way that could end doubts about his future while going a long way to address the housing situation in a positive, practical and fair way.
After months of dithering, the Government finally decided to take Northern Rock it into public ownership. At least £50 billion of public money guaranteed its survival. In the United States, George Bush’s administration nationalised mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to save them from collapse.
It is going to take proper public investment and not a hotchpotch of half-measures to build the homes we need in Britain.
John Ruskin, the Victorian socialist, once declared that it was “the first duty of the state to see that every child born therein shall be well housed”. The current Prime Minister and his predecessor in Number 10 Downing Street have failed in that duty.
It will be ironic if the sub-prime housing crisis in America and the drive to own your home encouraged by successive Tory and Labour governments over the past 30 years has initiated the train of events that brings the house down on Gordon Brown’s Government.
Terry McGrenera is editor of The Green Paper – politics for the planet and its people
