So your home is no longer your castle, intact it is not even your home. We are to become a country of nomads moving from one place to another.

Can we evict Cameron from his state owned home after two years please, or preferably earlier than that.

Stuff like this gets my blood pressure skyrocketing. From what I’ve read council tenants will be evicted after two years if their financial circumstances change ie they’re lucky enough to find a half decent job. Apart from sending out the wrong messages in oh so many ways the govt. seems to have this idea that, in order to reduce waiting lists, instead of actually building more social housing (5 million sounds like a nice round figure) it’s cheaper to simply boot people out of their homes and into the clutches of estate agents, banks and Rackmanite landlords- who of course invariably vote for the you-know-who’s.

Is there no end to the fucking mendacity of this govt?

“After five years, when many immigrants get residency and become entitled to government help, just one in six live in social housing, exactly the same proportion as those born in Britain. ”

So what you’re saying is that by the time said immigrants are eligible for government help, one sixth of them have in fact already managed to get government help to which they’re not entitled?

So, err, there is queue jumping?

“And he is expected to end the right to a council house for life for new tenants, with some potentially being asked to move out after two years.”

Absolutely damn right. Social rents are subsidised. Because you need such subsidy at some point (yes, a good idea, there should be a welfare safety net) why should you continue to get that after you don’t need the subsidy any more?

It would be like continuing to get unemployment benefit after you’ve got a job, sickness pay after you’re better again.

Nonsensical in short.

There is another way to do this of course: just make social rents market rents. Then there’s no subsidy: and we can pay the subsidy to those who need it, while and only while they need it, through housing benefit.

I really, really, don’t understand this idea that some of you seem to have: that because you need help with housing at some point then you should continue to get such help after you don’t need it any more.

Why?

We have the LibDems to thank for letting them in. While they are in the Tories will impose a scorched earth policy. They will try to attack the working and under classes as much as possible before they get ousted. As has been pointed out. This housing policy is designed to chase people into the hands of ruthless exploitation landlords who are in fact Tory supporters.

Has anyone asked the Lib-Dems what they actually think of this awful COALITION policy as individuals ? No I thought not.

6

If responses from LD’s on here WRT other policies, or their record in general, are anything to go by it will be split between insisting it would have been worse without their influence, and hanging their heads in shame and mumbling something about it being unfortunate, but things were so much worse than they’d expected…and well…it’s the price of coalition politics isn’t it?

Yeah, right.

Is no-one here who is criticising the proposed changes going to answer Tim’s question at 4 ?

IMHO It seems central to discussion of the merits /demerits of the changes

@ 8

Agreed. I’m with you lot in spirit, but Tim raises some fair points.

Tim W: So, err, there is queue jumping?

Housing is allocated according to need – so obviously there is an element of people from immigrant backgrounds who need is desperately being fastracked. Guess what, white people queue-jump too – especially families that are homeless.

The attack on ‘queue jumping’ is to imply the housing shortage is because of them, or that they get a high percentage of social housing. They don’t.

that because you need help with housing at some point then you should continue to get such help after you don’t need it any more.

Yes you don’t really get it. The point isn’t to help people who don’t need it – but to ensure that people who are just getting on their feet don’t suddenly get chucked out and end up destitute again. It’s a bit like marginal tax rates – which you keep going on about – sometimes it takes time to be financially secure, and getting chucked out of social housing just months after getting a job won’t help that.

@ 8. First off it’s Tim Worstall’s right ring dogma but I’ll have a go anyway

You have to bear in mind that SH is not free and the vast majority of ppl pay full rent so why should they be made to move because they get a promotion at work? This would disincentive many people from trying to better themselves due to the possible penalties.
Most ppl would also struggle to raise the capitol to even get a mortgage to move onto the property ladder.

Why should ppl be forced into the high market rates of private landlords? why don’t they lower their prices to affordable rates for all?

Its just about making the less well off in society pay for the well off. I wonder if Tim has ever needed the help of the state or suffered the anxiety of not knowing where you were going to live next month?

@11….note that I say that if social rents were market rents then there wouldn’t be this problem.

But social rents aren’t market rents. Currently they’re about 50% of them (to rise to 80%).

So, everyone who lives in social housing is getting a subsidy from other taxpayers.

Why?

“I wonder if Tim has ever needed the help of the state or suffered the anxiety of not knowing where you were going to live next month?”

Yes and yes. Didn’t get the help (for complex reasons to do with being self employed etc) and for the second, I went couch surfing for a few months.

4
‘It would be like getting unemployment benefit when you get a job’

Nonsensical in short.

Yep it sure is, and it’s even more nonsensical that £20 million pa is paid out to those who are employed.
It’s a pity you don’t have the same view about tax credits as you do about social housing rents.

Tim should we not campain for govmt to force landlords to lower their rents rather than deride those less fortunate?

Having been in this situation yourself I thought you may be a little more empathetic to the plight of others in similar situations? You appear to fortunate enough to have had some recourse to self employment so could be flexible about your situation, did you have a wife and 3 kids with you when you were couch surfing?

“campain for govmt to force landlords to lower their rents”

This is known as “rent control”. Among economists it’s regarded as the best way of destroying cities short of aerial bombardment.

If you forcibly lower the price of something then you reduce the supply of it. Is anyone really trying to say that we need “less” housing in the UK? Assuming not, then rent control isn’t the answer.

And as to my being sympathetic….sure I’m sympathetic to those who haven’t got housing. That’s why I support (as above) the fact that we have a welfare safety net which pays for the housing for those who cannot afford it.

What I’m against is this specific method fo doing so which we have now. Where you continue to get the subsidy after you don’t need it.

Allowing landlords charge what they want is called free Market enterprise and we could right a whole chapter on how that destroys communities? Circa 1980′s.

“Allowing landlords charge what they want is called free Market enterprise and we could right a whole chapter on how that destroys communities? Circa 1980?s.”

You do know that the UK had rent control in the 80s? Only lifted in 88. So the 80′s experience is one of having rent control, not of its absence.

Was that after Mrs T sold off all the social housing?

Stick with the one subject would you?

Did the UK have rent control in hte 80s or not? Are you proposing that we have rent control now so it could be like the 80s again?

Should we just dismiss it altogether. Do any of the instances below come to mind?

The Global Property Guide believes that rent control is generally harmful, but it can be benign, if:

It is implemented so that its market-restraining effects are modest
It helps to defuse public protest about high rents, and
It assists citizens by providing an agreed framework for contracts.

“It is implemented so that its market-restraining effects are modest”

Well, yes, if you don’t have very much of something then it won’t be very harmful, will it?

Not very much arsenic isn’t all that harmful either.

Humans can absorb toxins and build up tolerance over time. It’s just the first couple of doses that leave a bitter taste?

Although I have to say it wasn’t the strongest argument I’ve heard on the subject?

@ Sunny

There are nearly five million names on council house waiting lists in England……..After five years, when many immigrants get residency and become entitled to government help, just one in six live in social housing………The attack on ‘queue jumping’ is to imply the housing shortage is because of them.

It is quite illogical that immigrants should be given subsidised housing before they are eligible to receive the other benefits provided by the social security system.

It is quite illogical that immigrants should be given subsidised housing before they are eligible to receive the other benefits provided by the social security system.

Hmm, to depart from froth mouthed righty tradition for a moment: asylum seekers, yes they should.

Especially since (insanely) we don’t let them work.

Workshy……lazy. Handouts.

What more can we hand out to the workshy?

@26

The four million GO will inherit without working for would be a good start?

I know it is such a radical idea that it is probably insanely stupid. We could er, build more houses. I struggle to think of instances of more supply of something leading to higher real prices. I suppose it is easier to believe that high rents and property prices are evidence of market failure. The reality is there is no market failure that I can see. High rents and property prices are exactly what one should expect to see because of the constraints we place on the market.

asylum seekers, yes they should.

Agreed.

The normal migrant comes to this country of their own volition with the full understanding that they cannot rely on the support of the UK state until they have fulfilled the requirements for citizenship. That is as it should be.

Asylum seekers are assumed to have come here because they are were unable, for some pressing reason, to remain in their country of origin. Of course it is correct that we supply all of their basic needs while their application is processed.

Especially since (insanely) we don’t let them work.

If our system processed asylum applications in a reasonable time frame there would be no need to allow asylum seekers to work. As things stand, I agree they should be encouraged to do so.

@ 25

“Workshy……lazy. Handouts.”

Engage…..brain. Thanks.

Also, I forgot to point out how stupid this sentence by Tim W is:

So what you’re saying is that by the time said immigrants are eligible for government help, one sixth of them have in fact already managed to get government help to which they’re not entitled?

You’re making the assumption that as soon as immigrants become eligible – that one-sixth have already gotten social housing. This is ludicrous.

There are two separate points here: first that immigrants can only get help after contributing for five years. Secondly, after that, the proportion who do get social housing is one-sixth, is exactly the same proportion as those born in Britain.

You’re mixing the two up deliberately and implying that as soon as they become eligible, they are able to jump the queue.

“Also, I forgot to point out how stupid this sentence by Tim W is”

No, sorry, the stupidity is in your writing.

You have said that immigrants aren’t able to access the welfare state: you then show that the number of immigrants who do and can access the welfrare state is exectly the same as the numbers of “indigenes” (to use one word) who access the welfare state, But, crucially, those immigrants have the same access as the indigenes while those immigrants are not supposed to have access to hte welfare state.

Read your own writing again Sunny.

“Immigrants don’t have access to state support until they have been here five years”

“At five years, those immigrants who don’t have access to the welfare state have the same access to subsidised housing as non immigrants”.

There’s a conflict between those two statements and they’re both statements you made, not me.

@28 Exactly. As I wrote elsewhere:

http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/regulation-and-industry/on-being-a-pointy-headed-policy-wonk/

“However, if you worked for the Adam Smith Institute you might think that, well, if it’s planning permission that makes housing so expensive, why don’t we just increase the amount of planning permission we hand out? If we increase the supply of something we’re fairly sure that we’ll decrease the price of it.”

It’s normally Luis Enriques who makes the complaint about the economic idiocy and ignorance of the left. But allow me to usurp him here, just this once.

Look, if you want to make something cheaper, increase the supply of it.

Or are you really to dim to get the point?

OK. Lets clear this up.

Non EU immigrants are entitled to social housing if they are “in work” or are “habitually resident in the UK”.

I’d have thought that would cover most.

http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/1138584

@Tim W

Competition also decreases prices but when vestedInterest or monopolisation rules the Market prices can be artificially high also.

Tim W: But, crucially, those immigrants have the same access as the indigenes while those immigrants are not supposed to have access to hte welfare state.

Err no – the link I pointed to clearly say they have access, but only after 5 years of contribution. Where exactly did I say immigrants do not have access to housing? The point was about queue-jumping. Please don’t accuse me of failing to read.

Look, if you want to make something cheaper, increase the supply of it.

Who the hell is arguing against increasing supply of houses? The left has been calling for that for years!

the link I pointed to clearly say they have access, but only after 5 years of contribution

No it doesn’t. What it says is

After five years, when many immigrants get residency and become entitled to government help, just one in six live in social housing

This is a sloppy sentence which does not make it clear at what point a non EU immigrant has the entitlement to access social housing- on arrival or after five years.

From what I can see http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/1138584 they have an immediate entitlement but if that is wrong I would be delighted to be corrected.

Sorry to keep hammering this but it seems pretty key to any debate.

“This is known as “rent control”. Among economists it’s regarded as the best way of destroying cities short of aerial bombardment.”

Mmhmm. So the following cities are amongst those which have been “destroyed” :

New York
Washington DC
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Oakland
Berkeley

If you want, Tim, I can send you a picture so that you can see the difference between “cities with rent controls” and “cities which have been subjected to aerial bombardment”.

You missed the “short of”.

And do try reading some stuff about the effect of rent control on hte NYC housing market some time. That’s where the comment actually comes from.

May have missed something here – could someone please explain why a person retains their entitlement to housing for life once granted, independent of their personal situation ?

How is this ‘fair’ (I hate that word, usually used by politicians misdirecting the punters) for those waiting for housing, who could conceviably be in a worse position than those installed in the available housing ? Or to the people funding this apparently endless provision ?

It seems entirely appropriate for the state (i.e. taxpayer) to provide a safety net for those in need, and offer everyone the opportunity to improve themselves, which therefore requires state housing, education and healthcare (at least at some level), but why should this one area of support last forever ?

A rational (apolitical ?) discussion on what the state should provide would seem appropriate, bearing in mind that someone said we’ve run out of money…

Yours curiously….

Let us remind ourselves of why Council Houses were introduced in the first place. It was designed to give people without the means to purchase their own home (predominately, but not exclusively working class). It was designed to give the the stability and security that owning their own home would do, to improve the lot of the large majority of the population who fell into that category.

Tim talks of a subsidy to council house tenants. Can he give us the figures that prove this subsidy? Tenants pay rents – yes less than the market rent – which cover costs. The estate on which I live was built for approximately £1million 40 years ago. The debt has been paid off by the council. The rent covers the cost of maintenance and improvements (at the moment they are going around fitting new kitchens, and upgrading heating), covers the cost of the staff in the housing department, and also makes up for things like empty properties and rent arrears/write offs etc. The Government grant is deisgned to cover the fixed running costs, and totals approximately 5% of the housing departments income.

Why are the rents so low? Partly because the Council doesnt have to make a massive profit on its rents, the council actually has fewer voids than the average private sector landlord, with less arrears. And because the council looks at the long term – its not thinking about selling the property in 5 years time at a profit, or clearing the mortgage (at sky high interest rates) early.

Tenants have the security they need to settle down with their family – get their kids settled into a school, instead of having to change every 6 months (the typical length of a private tenancy agreement). They can get to know their neighbours – and build a community.

What this policy will do is tio gradually ghetto-ise areas of our towns and cities, as occupants (i hesitate to use the word tenants) become transients – afraid to earn more in case they are thrown out – or moving from house to house with meagre possessions, unable to put down roots. This is not the country I want, nor is it the one that most people want.

What we need is a massive house building programe – both private and council. Additional private properties will bring down the price of purchasing a house, so that council tenants can afford to move out to their own house, and additioanl social housing to house the millions on the waiting lists. It has the additional benefit of employing hudreds of thousands of people, boosting the economy as well.