Almost 10,000 social rent homes were lost last year in England

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Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Flats originally built for social housing | Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

More social rent homes were sold or demolished than built last year, new government figures show

The number of social rent homes in England continues to plummet with almost 10,000 lost last year, according to new government statistics.

The country’s housing crisis continues to deepen amid a lack of supply and soaring rents, with evictions and homelessness surging.

According to figures released yesterday by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities (DLUHC), a net 9,379 homes for social rent were lost in 2022/23.

Social rent homes – historically known as council houses, though they are no longer solely provided through councils – are already massively oversubscribed. There are 1.2 million people on housing waiting lists across the country and people can languish on these for decades before being offered a home. Last year openDemocracy revealed that in 2022 2,300 people had died while on the waiting list.

Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who sits on parliament’s housing select committee, told openDemocracy: “I see the devastating impact of the lack of social housing in my inbox and my advice surgeries every week. Without social homes, too many people simply have nowhere else to go – they cannot afford to rent privately.

“At a time when we desperately need to increase the number of social homes, it’s outrageous that government policy means we’re losing them instead. The homelessness crisis is being fuelled by Right to Buy and the failure to build social housing.”

The latest figures show 18,799 social homes in the “low-cost rental” category were sold last year, while another 3,224 were demolished – totalling 22,023. According to the government, 86% (about 18,940) of these losses were social rent homes, with the remainder classed as so-called “affordable” rent, “intermediate” rent or “London affordable” rent.

With just 9,561 social rent homes completed in the same year, that brings the total losses to 9,379.

Social housing used to be the second most common type of home in the UK after home ownership. But following Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy policy introduced in 1980, the country has seen a huge sell-off of homes into private ownership. Councils sold 10,896 through Right to Buy last year.

These statistics come as the supposed landmark private renters bill, the Renters Reform Bill, has been delayed again, with no update on when one of its key tenets, banning ‘no-fault’ section 21 evictions, will come in. News of the delay coincided with the publication of damning statistics that show the number of these evictions has rocketed by a third in 12 months.

Section 21 evictions are the number one cause of homelessness in the UK and figures released by the Ministry of Justice show 30,230 landlords began section 21 court proceedings in 2023 – a 28% rise on 2022. There was also a surge in the number of these evictions where bailiffs were involved.

Housing minister Lee Rowley was recently criticised for a misleading boast about a “significant increase” in all types of social housing under the Conservative government, while being questioned about a policy that only affected social rented homes.

Rowley is yet to correct his statements.

Separate statistics from the government’s own Regulator of Social Housing shows there has been a decrease of 225,102 genuine social rented homes since 2012, though this is offset by the addition of 361,560 so-called “affordable” rent homes.

“Affordable” rent homes are rented for up to 80% of market rates and remain out of reach for many of the people on housing wait lists. Poverty campaigners, the Chartered Institute of Housing, and even a Conservative MP have criticised the government’s use of “affordable” homes figures to massage the dire state of social rented stock.

Conservative MP Bob Blackman told openDemocracy that building more social homes at social rents was essential.

“I feel disappointed,” he told openDemocracy. “I’m not worried about the number of homes sold, or the numbers demolished. What I’m concerned about is that we’re not replacing them. That’s the problem.”

Blackman insisted the Conservative government had not failed on social housing, but added: “I agree that we haven’t built enough whatsoever.”

A spokesperson fro DLUHC told openDemocracy: “Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme is delivering thousands more affordable homes to rent and buy right across the country.

“Last year also saw the highest levels of completions of social rent since 2013. The total stock of [all types of affordable housing] has grown by 151,000 since 2010, whereas in the previous 13 years it fell by 420,000. Despite the economic climate we remain on track to build one million homes this parliament and our long-term plan for housing will allow us to go even further to deliver the homes we need.”

Original article by Ruby Lott-Lavigna republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingAlmost 10,000 social rent homes were lost last year in England

To tackle the cost of living crisis, we must end the Great British Rip Off

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A major culprit of the ‘cost of living’ crisis is hiding in plain sight: an extractive economy that redistributes wealth upwards

Last week the UK energy regulator, Ofgem, announced that the energy price cap will rise by 54% in April, pushing up bills for millions of households by £693 per year. On the same day, fossil fuel company Shell reported that its annual profits had quadrupled, largely due to the very same soaring gas prices that are responsible for fuelling recent spikes in inflation.

In other words: not everyone is feeling the pinch of the ‘cost of living’ crisis. As household budgets are squeezed even further, fossil fuel company shareholders are laughing all the way to the bank.

Energy is far from the only sector where one person’s pain is another’s gain. In recent decades, many of our most essential services have become engines of extractive redistribution – taking wealth away from workers and funnelling it upwards to asset owners.

Perhaps the largest expense for many households is housing costs. For much of the past half-century, housing has served two conflicting functions in the economy. On the one hand, housing is a basic need – providing shelter, security and warmth. From this perspective, it is desirable for house prices and rents to stay low to ensure that housing is affordable. On the other hand, housing has become one of the primary vehicles for accumulating wealth. From this perspective, it is desirable for house prices and rents to increase, enabling those who own property to grow their wealth over time. These two roles are in direct conflict with each other: housing can not simultaneously be affordable and lucrative as an investment at the same time, as much as politicians like to pretend otherwise. In recent decades, government policy has sought to promote the latter role at the direct expense of the former – with dire consequences for the millions of households that are locked out of homeownership.

While economists and politicians hail a booming housing market as a sign of wealth creation, in reality it’s one of the most powerful forms of wealth redistribution. When the price of a house goes up, the total productive capacity of the economy is unchanged, because nothing new has been produced: it merely constitutes an increase in the value of an existing asset. While this increases the net wealth of individual homeowners and landlords, for everyone else it often means facing higher rents in the rental market, and having to save for a deposit and pay more interest on larger mortgages. The reality is that the housing ladder is rather like a zero-sum game: the wealth enjoyed by some is mirrored by the deprivation and exclusion of others.

There can be no doubt that the ‘cost of living crisis’ is a real concern. But it is not new, and it is not simply the result of rising gas prices. For decades, British households have been squeezed by a pincer movement of persistently low incomes on the one hand, and extractive business models on the other. Unless urgent action is taken on both fronts, another ‘lost decade’ looks all but inevitable.

Continue ReadingTo tackle the cost of living crisis, we must end the Great British Rip Off

Commentary and analysis of recent political events

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The government is trying to pass a clause in the Care bill today that will allow hospitals to be closed much easier without public consultation.

Hospital closure clause battle heats up today

Stormy scenes are likely in parliament today as the government tries to “rush through” changes that will make it far easier to close hospitals without public consultation. The changes,which OurNHS has campaigned on from the start, now face fierce opposition from doctors, 38 Degrees, the British Medical Association, NHS campaigners and charities.

On Friday Ed Miliband tabled a motion of opposition to the Bill, saying it “includes provisions which could put NHS hospitals at risk of having services reconfigured without adequate consultation and without clinical support”.

The hospital closure clause gives Trust Special Administrators greater powers including the power to make changes in neighbouring trusts without consultation. It was added to the Care Bill just as the government was being defeated by Lewisham Hospital campaigners, in an attempt to ensure that campaigners could not challenge such closure plans in the future. But the new Bill could be applied anywhere in the country.

Louise Irvine, Chair of the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, said “If services need redesigning the law must ensure this is with proper and extensive consultation with local people. This process cannot be rushed. Decisions should not be based on the needs of investment banks. What happened to the government promises that in the NHS there would be ‘no decision about me, without me’?

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Ed Miliband commits to doubling the number of homes built each year. The move is likely to prove very popular. I think that he’s correct in recognising development and building as a racket concerned with profiteering. I would also like to see the renovation of properties and the conversion of buildings to homes or other forms of social housing.

Ed Miliband promises drive to double rate of housebuilding

Profiteering property developers that hoard land and councils that block developments will be swept aside in a “non-stop drive” to more than double the number of homes being built each year in England, Ed Miliband will promise on Monday.

Attacking “stick-in-the-mud councils”, the Labour leader will say he would order a national planning inspectorate to give priority to local authorities that want to expand if they are being blocked by neighbouring councils refusing to release land.

Under the Labour plans, councils would be empowered to compulsorily purchase land or charge fees if developers fail to build on land for which they have planning permission. Michael Lyons, the chair of Labour’s new independent commission on housing and a former BBC chairman, told the Guardian that Britain needed to recapture the postwar spirit when building homes was the national priority.

Despite MPs claiming publicly that they object to their intended pay rise, only 10 MPs back a motion to limit their pay rises to 1% to match the public sector.

Cuts to care funding mean half a million fewer looked after, study finds

Almost half a million fewer old and disabled people are receiving care and support from the public purse than would have been the case before the financial crash, according to an expert study.

The research comes as MPs vote on Monday on the coalition’s care bill, which aims to overhaul the care system in England but threatens to tighten still further the rules of eligibility for state support.

Charities and care organisations are calling on ministers to address a “black hole” in social care funding which they say has left the system short of £2.8bn a year that would be necessary to meet people’s needs assessed as “moderate”.

Bridget Warr, chief executive of the United Kingdom Homecare Association, said: “Funding good care which helps people stay in their own home is not only a moral responsibility for any civilised society, but is also cost-efficient as it extends people’s wellbeing, reducing admissions to A&E, and helps people return home from hospital quicker.”

Continue ReadingCommentary and analysis of recent political events