Among the overlooked consequences of the disintegration of political allegiance in the UK is the end of blanket public services for all. While devolution does much to boost democracy, it also has some unintended effects.
As voters dispense with a three-party system and embrace candidates from across the political spectrum from deep purple to bright green, the level of state support available will depend more than an ever on wherepeople have the fortune or misfortune to live.
Housing is a good example of this. Once we had a social contract for decent housing: if people simplycould not afford to house themselves well, the state would help by providing them with a stable home or by meeting the cost through the benefits system. Now, though, what housing support you can expect varies from country to country, and from council to council.
In theory, this has been the case ever since devolution to Wales and Scotland, but with a wider range of political views represented in our parliaments and councils those differences now amount to fundamental differences in opportunity.
From 2016, social tenants in Scotland will no longer have the right to buy their property as the country has axed the right to buy. This may prove to have huge social benefits in the long term, but it also means a Scottish tenant no longer shares the same opportunities to benefit financially from their tenancy rights as their English counterparts. Wales is considering the same move.
Meanwhile a left-led Scotland is also investing more heavily in social housing than politicians across the border, both through traditional grant funding and interesting new projects. This week, £9m was pledged by Scottish ministers and Glasgow city council to buy up and renovate almost 600 of the city’s rundown homes, half of which were in the private rented sector, to bring them back into use by a housing association.
The result of this effort is a slow but significant fall in the number of homeless applications, at a time when they are rising elsewhere. You’re now more likely to be find a home through the state safety net in Scotland.
Wales is also branching out on its own. It has increased investment in social housing, but is now also seeking to change the law to remove private tenants’ rights in the first six months of a contract. This move will of course stimulate the private rented sector and help more homeowners to let out their properties – particularly important in areas of rural Wales where salaries are low, social housing stock can be scarce and turnover is slow. It also confirms that tenancy rights are the right of the UK citizen but moveable at the behest of a devolved government – and perhaps, in time, councils.
After all, councils already exercise huge control over housing options and opportunities. Though English local authorities all operate under the same laws, they interpret them differently. Each council approaches its own homelessness application process slightly differently.
Discretionary housing payment (DHP) is a good example of this. This funding is important because it helps to plug the gap between the real cost of housing and government policies such as the bedroom tax. Not only is the pot allocated to councils by central government (which some areas feel is unfair), it is also then handled by councils based on their own assessments of needs and priorities which differ.
Housing associations have criticised this process as opaqueand warn that the funding is often not diverted to the most vulnerable. We now know the overall DHP pot is to be cut from £165m this year to £125m in 2015-16, which increases the risk of a postcode lottery between housing haves and have-nots.
The differences between regional housing markets and the brute fact that it is so much more expensive to buy a home in London than in Newcastle, and that private renting costs less than social rent in some impoverished areas of the north-east have always led to some inequality of opportunity.
Now we will see these differences extended further unless the next government is bold enough to set out a basic social contract on housing. It’s time for a conversation: what rights should we all have to shelter, and what others are we happy to leave at the discretion of a local administration?
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