It is not the duty of government to provide every citizen with the perfect home, but it is a symptom of failure when tens of thousands are unhoused. New government figures show 13,850 additional households officially entered that category in England between April and June this year – a 5% increase on the previous quarter. This conforms to an upward trend since 2010 in the full range of housing deprivation. In London, where the problem is most acute, charities have reportedly given out tickets for night buses as a means to keep people warm in the absence of hostel beds.
The facts alone ought to prick ministers’ consciences. They might also dwell on past damage this issue has inflicted on Conservative reputations. In the mid-1990s homelessness was an emblematic cause, galvanising public perceptions of Tories as devotees of a callous, sink-or-swim attitude to material disadvantage. Mindful of that enduring taint, David Cameron wants to cast his party as an engine for social advancement. In housing policy, the flagship measure for this purpose is the extension of a “right to buy” to properties let by housing associations. This is meant as a reanimation of the spirit of 1980s Thatcherism: the transformation of public-housing tenants into private home-owners, mobilising to great political effect the aspirational ethos of the times.
But housing associations are not local authorities and the 2010s are not the 1980s. Housing associations could not be forced to sell properties by the government without quasi-Bolshevik state violence to their independent, often charitable status. Even as a “voluntary” process, the extension of right to buy is riddled with difficulties. The government promises a “one-for-one” built replacement of sold homes. New money is meant to be available when councils sell their most valuable properties as they become vacant. But there is no clarity over the way this will be distributed. If it is centrally pooled, the effect will be to raise cash from the divestment of extremely valuable homes in London to subsidise new-builds hundreds of miles away, meaning fewer affordable homes where they are needed most.
The original right to buy contained a prejudice against social housing, and every subsequent iteration has depleted the stock. This would be less of a problem if the market worked to maintain a flow of properties at reasonable prices to match the needs of post-Thatcher generations. It doesn’t. The Tories are increasingly isolated in their refusal to confront this essential truth. Tim Farron made it a centrepiece of his first address as Liberal Democrat leader last week. John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, is expected to raise it at the Labour conference on Monday, and Jeremy Corbyn is sure to advance the theme in his first leader’s speech on Tuesday.
The debate we should be having would be on expediting and financing a massive increase in building, and on the location of the new homes. The government is allergic to that proposition because it touches on old Tory taboos: allowing local government to raise capital; negotiability of the green belt; state activism correcting market failure. The housing association idea was a campaign ploy to symbolise Conservative ambitions to share the bounty of home ownership, not a practical measure to achieve that goal. That is a bad way to develop policy in any field. In one as vital as the provision of roofs over heads, it is wantonly irresponsible.
