The disastrous LBC interview changes nothing - we need to turn the heat back on the government that caused the housing crisis
Natalie Bennett should have been better prepared. That’s really all there is to take from her interview with LBC yesterday, in which she crumbled under scrutiny of her housing policies. It’s not that the whole Green Party is discredited, or that she is stupid, or that she has her sights set on ‘the economy being wrecked and much-loved traditions destroyed’.
We need a bit of perspective. The Greens have some bad policies and some good ones; as Zoe Williams writes in the Guardian today, Bennett’s main mistake was in trying to answer a question rather than describe her vision. Most politicians skirt around the questions they are asked in interviews, instead reiterating the part they are proudest of again and again. It is certainly not uncommon for interviewers to be unable to get hard figures out of their subjects.
The difference is that normally these evasions are delivered smoothly, and most speakers have been extensively polished by PR teams so that they know not to incriminate themselves with coughs and pauses. Natalie Bennett somehow missed this training and she’s paying the price in jeers from all sides.
But voters should not let the circus distract them from housing policies that desperately need changing.The Conservatives have many policies and plans for housing which ought to be bigger news than the Green leader forgetting her figures.
For example, the vacant building credit that the government introduced in December 2014, exempts any housing developer who turns an empty building into private housing from paying to build further affordable units. So even if the developer is making good profits, they do not have to contribute to affordable housing.
Super-rich investors will profit from the change; among the first to do so are the redevelopers of an apartment block in Mayfair that was bought in 2013 by Abu Dhabi’s investment fund.
And what about Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to ‘gift’ recent benefit claimants with council house as a reward for being in work for one year? There are around 1.7 million people on the social housing waiting list. These are all people badly in need of a home. IDS’s proposal not only lets these people down, but it assumes that unemployed people choose to be so, and that all they need is a financial incentive to get back to work – as if the promise of a steady income and not having to use food banks was not enough.
There is also David Cameron’s proposal to scrap housing benefit for school leavers in a misguided attempt to improve the work ethic of young people. Again, this proposal overlooks all the complex economic reasons people are out of work and assumes the unemployed just can’t be bothered. Anger about this policy came even from within the prime minister’s own party – Health Committee chair Sarah Wollaston told the BBC:
“I would not support personally taking housing benefit from the most vulnerable. I would not personally support taking away housing benefit from the very young.”
House building is also at its lowest level since 1924. Since the last election, an average of just 201 social and affordable homes have been built in each Conservative-held local authority, according to research obtained by Shadow Local Government secretary Hilary Benn, compared with 403 in Labour-held councils.
In London the problem is especially bad, despite the capital’s growing population. According to the last census, London needs at least 40,000 new homes every year just to keep up with this growth, yet in 2010/11 less than half of that number were built.
All over the country people are finding it harder than ever for people to pay their rents, and home ownership is a laughable dream for a whole generation. Worse, homelessness charity Shelter reports that the number of homeless children is at a three-year high. So let’s take the heat off the Green leader for a second and start holding the government who have actually caused these problems to account.
Natalie Bennett apologised for her interview which, to be fair, hasn’t actually hurt anybody. The same cannot be said of the Conservatives, or of the policies they have introduced.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
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112 Responses to “Forget Natalie Bennett’s interview from hell, here’s the real problem with housing”
Bill Eborn
Really? You might want to have a look at Danny Dorling’s book, All That is Solid. Accompanying the rise in inequality over the past thirty five years or so, is the growth in overconsumption of housing by the wealthy and the beneficiaries of the great property lottery/ponzi scheme. The numbers of older people rattling around in houses that are too big for them because they don’t want to miss out on potential equity gains. The lack of regional policy which has resulted in the UK economy becoming overdependent on financial services based in London and the South East. This is a small country with a high population density. Do we really want to cover vast areas of countryside in bricks and mortar, incurring additional costs for the public sector needed to expand transport infrastructure and services or do we want to work our way out of this problem rationally? Planning and local democracy are part of the solution, not the problem
The Orbital Garden
The real problem with housing is politics.
It costs about £125,000 to build a home. The land price tax and infrastructure make up the remainder.
Due to competitive bidding between builders for the little land which we are permitted to build on the price of the land is set by the house price minus the cost (infrastructure, taxes and build costs) and leaving little profit for the builder.
Since the profits are low; their will be very little growth and new competition leading to low build rates.
How can this be changed?
The land market is heavily restricted by the planning law; if their was a slight surplus number of sites available the builders would not bid up the cost of land; initially this would put up profit slightly but lead to increased output. This would only work very slowly and take decades to resolve the issue.
If you are looking to resolve the issue quickly; you could flood the land market. This would force down land prices but could force builders out of business due to losses on existing land banks. Therefore you need to cut tax on the sites at the same time; so builders can still produce the needed homes. The falling land values will encourage builders to build and sell their land banks with houses (for a reduced profit); land speculator to sell to developers, or take large losses as land cost fall.
What land is required?
The problem is that with land with or likely to get planning permission it price is set by the residual land value. The price if it already contained housing minus costs. This means flooding the market will be very expensive; not something a party is unlikely to do or even afford when taking about austerity.
Therefore we need cheap land that is well connected, near jobs and railways. Its where people want to live.
It has to be homes that those with resources to pay for it like second/third steppers and/or baby bomber and the unpopular buy-to-letters will pay for.
So the land must be cheap, pleantful, well connected and near major cities. Therefore the land has to farmland on the outskirts of cities and/ or greenbelt.
How much land is required?
The flood needs to enough to convince land speculators that their is no point retaining land for the future. It must be enough that to deal with a decade or two supply based upon realistic population growth. If you understate it their is no lasting impact; overstating has little negatives as house are only ever built when someone will buy them.
The Orbital Garden
The current household formation rate is 245k per year; so any target less than this will only make the problem worse no matter other targets for PCT affordable.
A target of 300k will take until 2030s to resolve the crisis; if they are actually delivered.
A much higher target will be required to have a meaningful impact; it was done before after the war and can be done again this time with modern build practises and much faster. All we need is political will. Stop listening to the vested interests and resolve the issue.
Guest
Ah right, the massive profits are not high enough, boo hoo!
Keep trying to build mansions on the Green belt, as your land banks keep gaining in value
You demand a tax cut, check.
You ignore the need for communities, check.
You go right for farmland, check, well away from where people work, check.
You’d make an even higher profit from your speculation AND we wouldn’t see houses the poor could use.
Guest
So you blame green belt for a housing shortage caused by your ideology.
Too few new Mansions on the green belt, right.
Oh, and local democracy is evil to you.