Housing Policy Challenges and the New Labour Policy Approach in England
p. 173-187
Texte intégral
1This chapter considers the housing policy approach adopted by Labour governments in England since 1997. The Labour party in the UK has historically been the strongest supporter of state and municipal housing. Indeed it was this association that influenced the earlier Thatcher government to seek to dismantle council housing and, by providing the Right to Buy, erode the electoral advantage that Labour had in council estates (Forrest and Murie, 1991; Jones and Murie, 2006). Labour governments since 1997 have made little attempt to rebuild this electoral base and instead have renewed the competition to be the party of home ownership (a competition dating back at least to the 1960s). There are two ways in which this failure to rally behind the municipal or state housing tradition can be interpreted. First, as confirmation that housing is the wobbly pillar of the welfare state (Malpass, 2003), or as further evidence of the erosion of the importance of housing within the welfare state. The attacks on council housing and on housing subsidy are interpreted as representing further erosion of the welfare state. The alternative to these views is that housing under New Labour has become much more important but in the guise of home ownership within an asset based welfare system rather than state housing within a traditional welfare state. The stance taken by Labour may be best interpreted not in terms either of continuity or change in housing policy but rather in terms of a new approach to the welfare state.
The Legacy in 1997
2Traditional accounts of housing policy in England and in the rest of the UK have given a primacy of treatment to council housing and new towns as examples of how the state sought to manage housing problems and the housing system (Merrett, 1979; Harloe 1995; Malpass and Murie 1999; Mullins and Murie, 2006). Municipalities had developed a substantial and permanent role in the provision of rented housing between the wars and government turned to local authorities and new towns to rebuild the housing stock after the Second World War. The new housing built by local authorities and new towns was vastly superior to most of what was available within the existing housing stock and competed effectively with the privately rented sector. High quality housing available to the mass of the population was a significant expression of the Welfare State purpose to plan and provide for the majority of the population and to provide good quality housing that would contribute to objectives in health, education and economic development.
3Between the 1960s and 1990s there were a series of steps which shifted housing from a managed welfare state system to a market based and deregulated system. The housing situation inherited by an incoming Labour Government in 1997 was consequently very different from the market of 50 years earlier. In England private renting had continued to decline and home ownership had grown while the social rented sector had declined from its peak in 1979 of 31% to a level in 1997 of 21% and was an older, less high quality sector owned by housing associations as well as local authorities.
4But if we are to understand Labour’s performance after 1997 we need to appreciate the legacy beyond the housing sector itself. Demographic, social and economic changes since the mid-1970s had generated a more unequal society. Higher unemployment was associated with dramatic industrial restructuring and changes in the benefit system meant that those who were not in employment saw a considerable loss in income. The erosion of benefits applied to those who were unemployed or to older households and the preference for means testing rather than subsidies that benefited particular groups of households taking no account of their income was apparent. Reductions in taxation contributed to a growing inequality in individual incomes and even more so in household incomes. Discussions of polarisation, marginalisation and the emergence of an underclass are all indications of a concern about the growth of a two-speed economy. Unequal incomes and uneven economic development were increasingly reflected in differences in the home ownership sector. The extraordinary house price inflation of the late 1980s was an expression of these changes up to that point but were brought to an end by the equally extraordinary interest rates (peaking at an average mortgage rate of 15% in 1990).
5In understanding the development of affordability problems in England both before and after 1997 it is important to recognise the impact of the significant growth in income inequality occurring during the 1980s. The economic, demographic and other changes that occurred in the 1980s increased the gap between the rich and the poor considerably. While the increase in inequality did not continue to grow subsequently it did not diminish either: so there was a step change in inequality leaving a greater gap between the spending power of different occupational groups. A larger proportion of people had disposable incomes below 60% of median income or 50% of median income (ONS, 2007). The significance of this is not simply for the affordability position of those with the lowest incomes. It is also extremely significant for those with higher incomes and the concept of residual income discussed more fully below has become increasingly important.
New Labour Policies
6There were very limited changes to housing policy in the early years following 1997. The New Labour government was preoccupied with health and education and did not identify housing as a priority. The spending plans of the previous government were retained and there was no shift in policy direction to address the residualisation of social rented housing, or to increase housing supply. There was a greater emphasis upon social exclusion, regions, cities and neighbourhoods, urban policy and neighbourhood renewal and there was a continuation of initiatives commenced under the previous government and related to regeneration. But essentially there was continuity in housing policy and the focus upon home ownership.
7Measures directed at cowboy builders and proposals in relation to the house purchase process can be seen as attempts to make the private sector operate more efficiently and to protect the individual home owner rather than as changing the direction of policy. And initiatives in relation to social exclusion and homelessness or decent homes did not bring about any reversion back to a significant building programme for social rented housing. Essentially the policy agenda under New Labour was one of ‘more of the same’. The Green paper on housing policy published in 2000 (DETR, 2000) was preoccupied with the Decent Homes Standard and home ownership and proposed few changes. Indeed the modifications to the rent regime affecting the social rented sector introduced more of a market pricing system into what people paid for rented housing in the not-for-profit and municipal sector while discounts for the Right to Buy continued unaltered until 1999 and sales of council dwellings increased until 2006.
8The approach to planning policy was equally to find ways to speed the process of development and to reduce the nuisance effects of the planning system in delaying private developments. The sustainable communities plan (ODPM, 2003) was an important statement of change but again did not shift the direction away from a dependence on owner occupation. There were new targets for growth areas in the south of England and for market renewal in the Midlands and in the North of England but none of this involved any significant redirection of policy away from market based provision and home ownership. Perhaps the central intent of policy was better evidenced by the Home Ownership Taskforce (2003) and the reviews of planning jointly sponsored by the Treasury and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and carried out by Kate Barker (2003; 2004; 2006). The Treasury had by then become more concerned about the impact of high house prices and housing shortages on economic performance and international competitiveness.
9The Communities Plan, the Home Ownership Task Force and the Barker Review reinvigorated housing policy in Britain but also reconfirmed government’s commitment to home ownership. In April 2003, Kate Barker had been asked by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Deputy Prime Minister to conduct a review of issues affecting housing supply in the UK. The remit was to consider the weak responsiveness of the new build housing market in the face of rising house prices and concern that this adversely affected economic growth and hindered the achievement of major macroeconomic and European policy objectives.
10An interim report, produced in December 2003, indicated that housing supply affected economic and social well-being while the Barker Review Final Report, (published in March 2004 and welcomed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer) asserted that a substantial increase in house building would be required to achieve long-term stability in the housing market, with house price increases held to a low and pre-determined level. Existing levels of building were insufficient and an increase of between 70,000 to 120,000 units per annum in England was needed to improve affordability trends. The report acknowledged that this could have environmental consequences and contained several recommendations aimed at changing the planning and delivery processes for new house building. The Review also indicated that additional funds would be needed to deliver additional social housing to meet projected future needs.
11In the aftermath of the general election of 2005, the responsibility for housing and planning policy moved from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to a new Department for Communities and Local Government (and from John Prescott to Ruth Kelly). Emphasis was placed on delivering the overall housing targets set by Kate Barker and the commitment was made to increase the supply of social housing. However the new Secretary of State emphasised the economic importance of housing and reasserted the priority attached to home ownership:
[…] housing is an inspiration and opportunity. I want to see a society in which everyone has the opportunity to get on, fulfil their potential – no matter who they are or where they come from. A society that values and promotes social mobility. We all know how most people associate getting on with owning a home or getting a better one. People naturally value the sense of security that having an asset brings. Important points of progress in many of our lives come when we move out of the family home and start renting or get our first foot on the housing ladder – whether we buy outright or through some form of shared ownership (Kelly 2006: 1).
12Following her earlier report Kate Barker had been invited in 2005 to conduct a review of the land use planning system in England. The terms of reference were to consider how, building on recent reforms, the planning system could better deliver economic growth alongside other sustainable development goals. Following the publication of an interim report in July 2006 the final report was published in December 2006. This emphasised the importance of the planning system as a vital support to productivity and economic growth and identified ways of increasing the flexibility, responsiveness and efficiency of the system (Barker, 2006). The emphasis was placed on a positive approach to development and its economic benefits. The proposals relating to land included the review of green belt boundaries as well as action to improve the quality of green belt land and to incentivise the use of previously developed land.
13This brief outline of policy development has emphasised the continuing focus on home ownership and the economy. As the British government has more and more enthusiastically embraced home ownership as the way forward for housing, so the increasing inflation of house prices in the home ownership market has been the focus of comment. The year 2006 saw a continuation of the stream of media and research reports highlighting the consequences of increasing prices for different sections of the community and emphasising an affordability crisis across much of the UK. Government itself repeatedly referred to affordability problems and the actions taken following the original Barker Review reflected both the government’s approach to the crisis and the need to increase housing supply. However the affordability debate remains fraught. Just as it is true that ‘over the last decade it has become progressively more difficult for households to access home ownership as house prices have risen sharply’ (Wilcox, 2006: 2) so it is also true that over the last decade the significant growth of income experienced by some households coupled with low direct taxation and low interest rates has generated an increased demand for investment in housing.
14In 2006 and 2007 we saw further examples of government’s approach to housing: in a second report by Kate Barker (2006), a review of the future of social rented housing by John Hills (2007) and a review of the regulation of social housing carried out by Martin Cave (2007).
15John Hills was invited in 2006 by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to review the future of social rented housing. The review reported in February 2007 and was welcomed by the Secretary of State. Hills’framework for analysis of the social rented sector focused upon rationing, rents and subsidy. It presented these elements as the crucial determinants for the way in which social housing operates. So the character of the sector was determined by the bureaucratic rationing of access to the sector, while household decisions about mobility, both in housing and employment terms, were affected by nonmarket rents and the nature of the subsidy system. What emerges from the Hills review is a somewhat static and inward-looking account of the social rented sector. The preoccupation with rationing rents and subsidy means there is a tendency to make recommendations that relate to allocation policies and to housing finance and costs, rather than to some of the other areas that could be considered: including, for example, housing quality, housing rights, community stability and the varied character of the public housing stock – from highly desirable to highly undesirable.
16Thus, the report does not grasp the opportunity to examine whether there could be a renaissance of social housing in England. Rather it is preoccupied with making the residual sector a better one to live in and with providing people with routes out of it. In that sense the report could appear to be adopting an approach wholly compatible with the previous direction of policy and the preoccupation with home ownership.
17At this stage it is clear that the Hills report is not going to mark a renaissance of social housing and the response of the Secretary of State to the report is interesting in that context. Ruth Kelly welcomed the report and stated:
For me, social housing in the 21st Century must be about three things: providing improved security for the most vulnerable; treating people more as individuals, being more flexible to each household’s needs; and acting as a springboard from which people can progress in other walks of life – whether at work, gaining new skills or by getting a foot on the ownership ladder. (Kelly, 2007: 2–3).
18The agenda emerging is about dealing with poor management but what is seen by government as more ambitious and exciting are proposals that relate to social and economic mobility. And the discussion of how best to achieve this and how to make moving for work easier, leads on to a discussion about providing people with different ways of purchasing a stake in their home. There is an inexorable drift towards an agenda which is most enthusiastic about new opportunities for home ownership.
19The Government would continue to strive to make social housing respond better to people’s individual lives but the real drive was for people to access an asset-based system. The commissioning of a single report on social housing alongside a multiplicity of reports and initiatives on encouraging or sustaining home ownership does not suggest an imminent change in the direction of British housing policy. New approaches to make social home buying more accessible and a continuing emphasis upon affordable home ownership solutions for first time buyers still sound like more of the same, rather than any radical shift in policy. The Hills review will probably be seen as setting out where social housing can fit within a system predominantly based upon market provision and asset appreciation. It will set out an agenda to ensure that the quality of social housing is adequate but an agenda which sees social housing as a minor player and a springboard for home ownership, rather than a viable and sustainable alternative in its own right.
20Alongside this the Barker Review did acknowledge the impact of the reduction in municipal building on housing supply and noted the failure of the private sector to fill the gap left by the reduction in public housing construction. There were some recommendations that began to bear fruit in subsequent years – that a limited revival in the building of social rented housing was needed. However, the main thrust of the Barker Review was to continue to emphasise the advantages of a market based housing system, with home ownership as the key to housing policy but with a need to increase housing supply in order to reduce house price inflation. The analysis by Kate Barker in her initial report, and more strongly in a second review of the planning system, was that the key reason for the shortage of housing supply and the inflation of house prices was the effect of the planning system. This was delaying and preventing the private sector from building what it wanted to.
21While it would be wrong to overstate the anti-planning nature of these reviews, the analysis came down on the side that the planners were to blame rather than the developers. An alternative view was that developers were sitting on very large land banks and had planning permission to build housing which was not produced rapidly: this analysis suggested that the problem was the practices of the construction industry and of developers and the way in which they sought to ration supply in order to maximise profits. It is not clear that the Barker Review satisfactorily addressed these alternative interpretations of what was going wrong. It is also unclear that the solution, which was to build more housing in areas with the highest house prices, would have the desired effect. The economic analyses that supported this prognosis were extremely limited. They suggested that there would be a price effect from increased supply: but this might be small and might be delayed and the analyses do not satisfactorily address whether the price effect could occur somewhere else other than where the new building was produced. So, for example, there could be an increase in house building in a high price area that has no real impact on house prices in that same, highly desirable area. What it would do is draw demand away from adjacent areas which already have lower prices and would as a consequence generate even lower prices. Because the economic analyses involved were not sufficiently calibrated to local market conditions it is very difficult to arrive at a robust view on this. Again the conclusion has to be that the preoccupation with a market based system and owner occupation lead to some optimistic rather than realistic views of the impact of policy changes.
22By 2007 with a new government led by Gordon Brown, housing policy had risen to the top of the agenda. For the first time in many years, the Housing Minister, although still not a Cabinet member, would attend the Cabinet. While this implied a further prioritisation of housing, there was no reason to believe it meant any change in the direction of policy. While there was more evidence of a desire to invest in social rented housing, this remained a minority programme – there were no plans to reinstate a social rented programme at anything like the level that had existed before 1980. The reviews carried by John Hills and Martin Cave did not suggest a renaissance of social rented housing or ambitious programmes for new building and regeneration and the view that the planning system was the obstacle to solving the affordability crisis appeared to continue to dominate. Housing was much higher up the political agenda but the policy being pursued was essentially the same: it was still dominated by home ownership and would continue to reinforce the trend towards a more unequal home ownership sector and the maintenance of the status of social rented housing.
23By 2007 the right to buy had almost run out of steam. Changes to discount rates and the rise in property values meant that the numbers of properties being sold under the right to buy had diminished very considerably. Government was introducing new HomeBuy schemes to provide shared ownership options for council tenants and others who were unable to access mainstream home ownership (ODPM, 2005). Again it is important not to undervalue these or underestimate their importance for individual families but in terms of scale they were relatively small. The right to buy had continued to reduce the size of the social rented sector with more than two million homes sold since 1980. House building completions by local authorities continued to be negligible and those by registered social landlords had not risen sufficiently to replace the losses from new local authority construction. The stock of dwellings by tenure had further shifted towards owner occupation and average dwelling prices were rising much more rapidly and were particularly high in areas of economic expansion.
Market responses
24The effects of the legacy in 1997 combined with the actions after 1997 can be identified in key developments over the next decade. However, low interest rates and inflation, economic stability and higher employment and low direct taxation were equally, if not more, important. Essentially there is a strong argument that in a period of low interest rates and low taxation, households on high incomes that have experienced a considerable growth in income will choose to spend a much greater proportion of that income on housing. This is especially so if they think that this is the best hedge against uncertainties, inflation and older age. The standard calculations in affordability studies that people spend 25% of their income or three times their annual income or some similar multiples become meaningless once you move beyond a certain level of income. Once people have achieved generous levels of spending on food and clothing and other necessities, their residual income can be spent on almost anything and in this situation they may choose to disproportionately invest it in housing. If this is the case then the inflationary push associated with the decisions by high income earners becomes disproportionate. They can afford to pay more and to push prices up while those with lower incomes and lower residual incomes are unable to match the commitment.
25The pattern of affordability crisis associated with rapid house price inflation was being re-established by 1997 but was sustained subsequently. Low interest rates, the experience of the appreciation of property values and the favourable record of investment in housing compared with investment in pensions, the stock exchange and other locations fuelled over consumption. Households with more money were willing to invest more and indeed willing to invest a greater proportion of their income in housing and this contributed to house price inflation. Inelasticity of housing supply meant that the increased willingness to invest in housing largely generated a growth in prices and this growth in prices was uneven. It was highest in the more buoyant economic areas and in areas where housing was of better quality or higher status or could be relied upon to command higher rates of appreciation and to be good investments.
26Essentially, the argument here is that the consequence of the new housing policy (and its continuity of emphasis on market provision) operating against the background of much greater income inequality and differential ability to borrow and to spend was increased social and spatial inequality. A larger more differentiated home ownership sector becomes a characteristic of the society: rather than an aberration, it is a predictable consequence of a succession of policies operating in an economy based on unequal reward systems.
27It is important to note some other responses in this situation and this paper identifies three particular responses. Firstly, the development industry has responded to the pressures from government to build more and to the measures to secure affordable housing through the planning system by shifting to completions of flats or apartments and towards smaller properties. The new politics of urban housing involves central and local government, developers, planners and the architectural establishment in support for high density, brown field and inner urban housing that limits change elsewhere. It takes pressure off greenfield sites and avoids the political opposition to development in other parts of the country (Murie and Rowlands, 2007). It has meant that there has been a considerable growth in apartments which have not been a significant part of the built environment in England except in London. The balance between houses and flats shifted from 79 to 21 in 1991/2 to 60 to 40 in 2004/5 (DCLG, 2007).
28A second effect partly linked to the change in the development industry but also to the increased investment capacity of more affluent households was the growth of the buy-to-let market. Deregulation of the private rented sector in the late 1980s was expected to lead to a revival of private renting. Landlords were no longer expected to be deterred from investing in property to let because their tenants had fewer rights and there was no control over the rents that were charged. However, in the initial decade (up to 1997) following deregulation there was little sign of significant growth or the development of a new market. The new market that began to emerge in the second decade has been less explained by deregulation itself as by the decisions of developers and investors. There has been a considerable growth in the buy-to-let market especially through the purchase of apartments and the growth of second home ownership.
29There is not room in this chapter to do justice to this discussion but it is important to recognise the links between the decisions to purchase more than one home and the decisions to invest more in housing generally. For the affluent sections of the community, those with mortgages that were almost paid off, those who were seeing a considerable growth in residual income, housing was an attractive investment. One reasonable action was to trade up, to buy a bigger property, to invest more in the house that you lived in; but a second logical reaction is to buy another house and let it, or in some cases leave it empty and rely upon the appreciation in value, as a way of getting a better return from the investment than if money was placed elsewhere.
30The growth of the buy-to-let market could again be seen as a natural accompaniment of a buoyant home ownership market and the view that investment in land and property was the safest and the most likely to bring the best rate of return. The practice of developers in selling apartments off plan has also been identified as favourable to the investment purchaser (see Murie and Rowlands, 2007).
31Thirdly, it is important to recognise the different ways in which the individual consumer has reacted to the affordability crisis. There is some confusion in the housing research literature in England. There are contributions which emphasise the impossibility of ordinary households meeting the thresholds required to buy properties. And yet these thresholds only exist because people actually do buy the properties. How do we explain rising house prices if nobody can afford to pay them? Perhaps the research community is looking in the wrong direction? It is looking at first time buyers and people on average incomes and seeing them as unable to pay large prices when it should be looking at more affluent groups with higher incomes and dual incomes and with an ability to purchase more than one property. It is this group that is able to buy one or more properties at inflated prices and exacerbate the affordability crisis for others. In between these two groups there are those who adopt all sorts of mechanisms which enable them to bridge the gap. They do borrow much more than the multiples of incomes that researchers suggest are appropriate. This may not always present a problem because they will use mortgage products that have lower interest repayments in the initial period or they will rely upon the fact that their incomes do rise rapidly in the occupations that they work in and the proportion of their income represented by mortgage payments declines rapidly as their income rises – down to a level that is much more acceptable to the researchers’instincts.
32We also know that people borrow from friends and family, are helped by other family members, make use of savings and inheritances, purchase on a joint basis, resort to credit card and other borrowing to manage budgets that are stretched by mortgage payments and so on. Of course, this leaves a larger number of people at risk if interest rates rise or if they lose jobs or their relationships break down. There is some evidence of increasing repossessions and mortgage arrears associated with these factors but they are still nowhere near the levels associated with the late 1980s when house prices slumped.
33We could conclude from this that while affordability is presented as a crisis, it is endemic to the system and is a manageable crisis for government and for many homeowners. It is an opportunity for those who can buy and whose properties appreciate in value and it is certainly much less of a crisis than a lack of demand or a lack of house price inflation that begins to generate a reluctance to buy and sell, negative equity and the problems associated with the late 1980s.
34This chapter has focused on the housing policy record of Labour governments since 1997 and the view that the continuity of policy confirms (whatever the rhetoric of government about how important it is) the lack of importance of housing within the welfare state. The chapter suggests however that this view is deficient and that we need to start from a different position. If we are to understand what has happened to housing policy in England, we need to set the debate up in a different way and to recognise the centrality of home ownership, not just to housing policy but to the approach of government to the provision of welfare and a wide range of services. Owner-occupation and not social housing is at the centre of housing policy and indeed of the new welfare state. We have moved away from the Marshallian welfare state with its emphasis upon citizens’ rights, and Beveridge’s preoccupation with universal benefits, uniformity of benefit and equality of treatment. We have moved towards an asset based welfare system which seeks to encourage individuals to make provision for themselves especially through savings and the acquisition of assets (see Groves et al., 2007). Government is concerned to encourage home ownership as part of that asset based welfare system and recognises that inequality is an inevitable dimension of a choice-based and asset based welfare state system.
35The politics of housing has changed in this environment and responses to affordability problems have not involved a reversion back to state provision or to social rented housing to any significant extent, nor have they involved the introduction of controls that would be seen as distorting the market in a similar way that rent control had been seen to do previously. Rather the responses have gone with the direction of the market. The contention of this paper is that if we start with this understanding of the drivers of policy and the underpinnings of policy we generate a different perspective on some of the key problems associated with the contemporary housing situation. In particular, affordability problems which attract such attention, and which represent such an important problem for households seeking to enter the market for the first time, are not the consequences of the failure of policy rather they are endemic features of the policy. Whilst this does not deny that they are areas for policy attention and action they are unlikely to be addressed in the same way.
36This perspective suggests that rather than seeing housing policy as having dropped down to a minimal position and state intervention in housing as being marginalised, or drawing a contrast with the attention given to education and health, it is more accurate to see housing as the key building block for the new welfare state and the key building block providing citizens with security and stability in turbulent economic and social times. Rather than the security of government provided benefits and services, the key building block for the 21st century British citizen is home ownership. The state, by encouraging and facilitating the growth of home ownership, asserts that it will achieve what it had sought to achieve through the provision of comprehensive welfare services – but at less cost in terms of public expenditure and with greater certainty about people’s stake in the system. Such arguments had always been strongly expressed in relation to home ownership, were more strongly articulated by Conservative ministers through the 1980s and 1990s and became conventional statements by Labour ministers. Housing had become a key pillar of the welfare state and provided the bedrock for income in older age, inter-generational transfers, the stability of family life and the development of a responsible society of asset rich citizens. Government was less sensitive to statistics about housing poverty and housing conditions but was more concerned about the impact of affordability on the electoral behaviour of middle class citizens.
37This chapter has argued that home ownership is now a key dimension of an asset based approach to welfare which has effectively replaced the Beveridge welfare state system. The more that this asset based welfare system develops in an environment of increasing income and social inequality, the more that the home ownership market will reflect these inequalities and the differential levels of residual income that people choose to invest in housing. The asset based welfare state will be a generator of inequality as well as achieving some security for people through their ownership of assets. These two things are compatible: people will own assets and that achieves government’s objectives of providing self confidence and security. But what they own will be very unequal. The formula being adopted is one which is likely to mean that people will be willing to pay more for what they see as better investments and more desirable housing. The values of properties in different places and of different types will diverge. A more stratified market with different rates of house price inflation is an inevitable outcome rather than being some unexpected consequence. Home ownership is a generator of inequality through the wealth that it represents, the differential access to other public and private services (including schools, leisure, health) that are accessed according to where people live, inter-generational transfers associated with higher education and house purchase as well as inheritance, the ability to step outside state provision in relation to education and health and other services and income in old age.
38The asset based welfare state is essentially one that has abandoned equality of provision although it can be argued that it still seeks to ensure that everybody is encouraged to save and to own. If inequality and affordability are endemic, then policy responses are unlikely to eliminate these issues. Affordability problems will be a continuing feature of the housing provision system in England. If they were ever to go away they would be replaced by an even bigger crisis of housing market collapse and negative equity. Except in these situations it will be the norm to have prices rising at rates which suit some but do not suit others. The challenges for policy will be how to maintain that buoyant market which gives confidence to the mass of the population and retains their political and electoral support and at the same time to give some hope to those not on the escalator and those on the upward escalator but falling off. Government has tended to turn its face away from a mortgage allowance system equivalent to housing benefit to help people in periods when their ability to meet mortgage payments falls (perhaps because of loss of employment or other factors). The mortgage indemnity insurance system does not work as effectively as would have been hoped and so the risks of people falling out of the system are greater than is desirable. Whether government will address these issues is uncertain.
39Government could equally focus on those on the upward escalator and stopping others from getting on, by purchasing more than one property. There has been a naïve view in England that the growth of private housing provision equates with the growth of home ownership and there needs to be a realisation that housing investment by private investors squeezes out investment by home owners. The more private investors there are, the fewer properties are left to be purchased by home owners. This may mean that an asset based welfare system in which home ownership performs a key part needs to protect the interests of the home owner from the investments by people who own more than one property. Some of the analysis of the growth of the buy-to-let market in England associates this with a favourable taxation treatment in which interest payments on buy-to-let mortgages are allowable as an expense against the business while the home owner is not able to set off such expenditures against tax and so can not afford to pay as much in buying the property. Greater attention to the taxation and regulation of the private rented sector might emerge to address this.
40The enthusiasm of government for home ownership and wider asset ownership may mean that they are reluctant to do anything which would seem likely to undermine the growth in these activities and it will be more likely to adopt palliative policies to deal with groups which are adversely affected by the general direction of change in the market. So there may be schemes designed for particular groups (low income households in private renting, those in the social rented sector, newly forming households with low incomes, households living in particular areas of economic decline or in rural areas, households from black and minority ethnic groups, those with disabilities and so on). Rather than address the general direction of market development, there will be attempts to give some support in particular situations linked with low incomes.
41Finally, there may be some revival of policies to invest in social rented housing. Strategies to renew the social rented sector are widely discussed and government has announced increased investment in social rented housing but, at this stage, what is being discussed is relatively small. This could be seen as an attempt to provide some safety nets accessible by particular groups rather than to rebalance the market. The reality is that the operation of the housing market in a new welfare state context will continue to involve unequal outcomes and to reflect inequalities that exist elsewhere. Policies towards social housing will not become attempts to moderate or rebalance the market and will not become the central platform of housing policy but will continue to be part of the measures designed to mop up the worst consequences of having put market provision at the centre of the policy agenda.
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Auteur
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies University of Birmingham, UK
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