Lifting the HRA borrowing cap should come with accounting changes
Theresa May’s announcement that borrowing caps on council housing investment will be removed was a big step in the right direction, and the issuing of draft regulations appears to confirm that the caps will be lifted at the end of this month. With reports of a Treasury fight-back, the concern was that restrictions could have […]
Asylum seekers in Scotland – what’s the background to the SERCO contract issues?
Despite all the fuss about migration levels, the numbers applying for asylum in the UK are at historically low levels. They ran at over 100,000 annually in the early noughties, then fell to around 30,000 per year and are back near that level again after another short peak linked to the migrant crisis in the […]
Will housing receive a ‘red tape bonus’ from Brexit?
Leaving the European Union is supposed to free us from red tape. Depending whether Brexit is hard or soft, it could give Britain more freedom to set its own rules. Will this be of any benefit to the housing sector? Let’s look at some of the possible changes. EU procurement rules are one example. Ending […]
Why councils don’t use their borrowing capacity
Before parliament went off for its summer holidays, the housing minister Kit Malthouse said he was ‘at a loss’ to understand why councils don’t use their full borrowing capacity to build new homes. Always willing to help out a new minister, I’ll offer a quick guide to why this apparently lamentable situation has come about.
The hostile environment: what social landlords need to know
The problems experienced by the Windrush generation highlight the effects of the “hostile environment” created by Theresa May when she was home secretary. Anyone needing rented housing is affected, alongside those going to hospital or applying for a job or bank account. Social housing applicants have long had to comply with eligibility rules but landlords […]
Encouraging messages, now Labour must work on the detail
Jeremy Corbyn launched Labour’s affordable housing green paper last Thursday, promising one million new homes over ten years of which a significant number would be for social rent. The ambition was clear: funding will be restored to the level when Labour last held office, and councils will once again become “major deliverers” of social housing. […]
Raab’s use of outdated and oversimplified evidence is foolhardy
In response to demands that he produce the evidence for his claim that immigration is driving up house prices, the housing minister has now published the calculations. Do they back up his argument? First, it must be said that researching the drivers of house price increases is fraught with difficulty as there are so many […]
Raab’s claims about immigration oversimplify a complex housing problem
Dominic Raab, the housing minister, has rightly been asked to produce the evidence to back up his claim that immigration has put up house prices by 20 per cent over the past 25 years when the research suggests that immigration is just one factor pushing up housing demand and a minor one at that. The […]
Government policy needs to return to building homes to let at modest rents
As the latest UK Housing Review is published, co-author John Perry describes how government priorities have shifted from direct investment in affordable housing to personal subsidy through housing benefit. If asked about how the government spends money on housing, most people would probably say they build council houses – but of course they’d be wrong. […]
Developers are skimping on low-cost housing: time to get tough
The government is so scared of antagonising developers that it is failing to insist on affordable homes being built. The government has missed another opportunity to put the building of affordable housing where it belongs – at the heart of planning policy. Affordable homes that are built when developers get planning permission for a housing […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on