Bye bye Starmer

[Nefarious]

Of course, we only need to drastically expand housing stock because of population growth (last year was the largest in 75 years) and obviously you know what is driving that...

Not much on telly?

[ZedLeg]

I’m not suggesting forcing a replacement. Just trying to set up a position where poor people aren’t spending more than half their income on rent.

[Nefarious]

I’m not suggesting forcing a replacement. Just trying to set up a position where poor people aren’t spending more than half their income on rent.

So directly subsidise in the form of greater housing benefit

I'm massively pro policies that have a redistributive effect. Societies get better as wealth is distributed more evenly. If that can be done via market corrections (e.g. reducing exploitation of workers), fantastic. If it can only be done through the brute force of the tax and benefit system, that's less good, but ultimately better than not doing it

[ZedLeg]

I’m not suggesting forcing a replacement. Just trying to set up a position where poor people aren’t spending more than half their income on rent.

So directly subsidise in the form of greater housing benefit

That’s not a long term solution if private rents keep going up is it.

[Nefarious]

That’s not a long term solution if private rents keep going up is it.

It's effectively the same as what you are suggesting - i.e. keeping social rents the same in the face of a rising market. You are subsidising either way.

You are trying to solve an income problem by legislating on housing

[ZedLeg]

I’m not, I’m trying to solve a housing problem by building more houses where they’re needed.

I understand why you feel you need to defend the way it works now but I fundamentally disagree with your view.

[V8Granite]

How was council housing done after WW2 ?

Ours is a 1952 council house in a development of around 100 houses. They are terribly built and no-one knew what a set square was.
My parents live in a 1955 bungalow 1 town over and the build quality is noticeably better c

Did the government control council housing in the 50s or did it just give the go-ahead to build lots of houses fast, but constructed by private firms ?

Dave!

[Nefarious]

I’m not, I’m trying to solve a housing problem by building more houses where they’re needed.

I understand why you feel you need to defend the way it works now but I fundamentally disagree with your view.

On the first point - more housing - we were originally talking about whether foreign investment in property is a good thing. More money being invested in land, property and development means more houses being built. Government policy can help direct the nature of that, but going around banning this and nationalising supply of that is not the way to go.

And yes, I personally operate in the property market, but my comments are motivated by a firm belief in what government should and shouldn't be sticking its fingers in.
Certain things are pure public goods. Defense and street lighting are good examples. Their key qualities are that you can't deny people the benefit of it, and it doesn't cost any extra for more people benefiting. It is unquestionably good for the government to run defense and provide street lighting in-house. At the opposite end of the scale, you have pure private goods. Bread is a good example. You can stop people consuming it if they don't pay for it, and more people consuming directly reduces the amount for everyone else. The government aren't bakers. It makes no sense for them to directly take over the supply of bread rather than taxing or subsidising the bakery industry, no matter how extortionate people think the price of bread might be.
Then there are industries that have no natural equilibrium, like natural monopolies (like electricity or water distribution, where the cost of the infrastructure is so huge that they can't be competitive). Here there is a case of government ownership or heavy direct regulation.
And finally there are social goods, like libraries, where there is no natural market at all, and the social benefits can only be achieved through public provision. Government should run the provision of libraries because if we, as a society, want them, nobody else is going to.

Housing does not fit into any of these categories. It is reasonably efficient market, and supply and demand will naturally find an equilibrium that correctly incentivises both providers and customers. Government has no special skills to bring to the party. If you perceive prices at the bottom to be too high, there are well established mechanisms for adjusting that.

I see no reason for banning anyone from entering the supply side of the market, or wholesale taking over the industry, any more than I would advocate a forced take over of Heinz if we were complaining about the price of baked beans

[ZedLeg]

Again, I’m not talking about forced takeover of anything. I’m also not talking about the government managing all housing in the country.

I don’t see a problem with the central government managing a national house building project and local authorities managing the properties though.

It’s what they did after ww2.

[Nefarious]

It doesn't matter whether you define "the industry" as nationwide housing provision or as social housing provision in a specific suburb of a specific city. The point still stands. Governments govern, house builders build houses, letting agencies rent/manage properties. Any deviation from that is inefficient.

I don't know what makes you think a government body would do a better job of housing provision (or indeed what you would use the measure it). Currently, council services generally are woefully inefficient, and their inefficiency and mismanagement is only masked by the fact that the costs are picked up by the public purse. Hell, in our neck of the woods, councils have only avoided being bankrupted by housing by getting a special dispensation to the rent control rules, and telling private tenants to screw their landlords to avoid having any more residents on their books.

[ZedLeg]

That’s what makes it akin to other public services to my eyes.

Social housing needs huge investment with little to no reward for the foreseeable future. How are you going to get that without government involvement.

Just shovelling money into the pockets of landlords and developers doesn’t seem to be working.

[Nefarious]

That’s what makes it akin to other public services to my eyes.

Social housing needs huge investment with little to no reward for the foreseeable future. How are you going to get that without government involvement.

Just shovelling money into the pockets of landlords and developers doesn’t seem to be working.

What makes it akin to other public services? The fact that it's being hideously mismanaged?

If you could point me to the queue for this money that's being shovelled, I'll gladly join it.
My experience is precisely the opposite - landlords and developers are the soft underbelly that represents easy revenue when it needs to be raised. But there more costs you put on them (e.g. disallowing tax relief on interest, introducing yet another "licence" to pay for etc etc), the higher the pricepoint landlords/developers are incentivised to target - i.e. less social housing. When they try and put a plaster on the problem by introducing rent controls, they have the same effect, pushing the suppliers further up the market.

Government are absolutely in control of this. They set the planning rules. They stipulate the dwelling mix (what % of a given development has to be "affordable housing") as part of granting planning permission. They set the tax/licencing regime developers operate within. The fact that they have comprehensively failed to use the levers available do this successfully (as they should be doing with all regulated industries) is hardly a strong argument for them taking over the social housing sector wholesale.

[ZedLeg]

The fact that it needs huge investment with little to no opportunity to profit.

Governments don’t need projects to be profitable.

They currently spend about £15bil a year on housing benefits.

At the end of the day this is all moot, what I want will never happen as everyone agrees something must be done until it threatens their bottom line.

[Nefarious]

So make it profitable then. Drop stamp duty on new builds under £500k. Grant more planning permission on brownfield sites. Stipulate a higher proportion of affordable housing in the UDP dwelling mix. Invest in infrastructure around potential development sites. Stop the "help to buy" schemes that just inflate new build costs relative to the rest of the market. Pay for it at the top end with a progressive CGT/stamp duty system (i.e. those making big capital gains or selling expensive properties pay a higher %).

Government projects don't need to be profitable, but they need funding if they're going to be loss making. It is the responsibility of government to spend their tax revenues wisely.

And tackle a poverty problem as a poverty problem. Stop targeting exactly the landlords/developers who can help increase supply and bring rental prices down with punitive, counterproductive revenue raising measures, and tackle the disparities in education/training and corporate power than lead to exploitative employment practices and low wages.

£15bn on housing benefit is shameful, but it says more about our economy and our policies to protect the incomes of the bottom 15% than it does about the housing market.

Food price inflation was knocking on the door of 20% in 2022 and has been a major factor is the rising cost of living. Presumably you wouldn't suggest solving that problem by the government going into the farming business?

[ZedLeg]

The £15bil number isn’t supposed to be emotive. I was just pointing out that’s where we’re shovelling money into landlords pockets.

We don’t need to mess with stamp duty etc as these houses won’t be sold.

Building new social housing would be helping poverty as it would be putting the most at need into secure new houses, rather than whatever they can find in their area.

We should at least be aiming to get social housing levels back to where they were pre right to buy.

I feel like we’re just going in circles here.

[Nefarious]

I feel like we’re just going in circles here.

Probably

[Jobbo]

Can we change the thread title to 'Bye bye farmers' now?

[ZedLeg]

Food price inflation was knocking on the door of 20% in 2022 and has been a major factor is the rising cost of living. Presumably you wouldn't suggest solving that problem by the government going into the farming business?

I just noticed this. This is from the other day

We could nationalise farming

[Gavster]

Food price inflation was knocking on the door of 20% in 2022 and has been a major factor is the rising cost of living. Presumably you wouldn't suggest solving that problem by the government going into the farming business?

I just noticed this. This is from the other day

We could nationalise farming

At least you're consistent

[Jobbo]

Nationalise Zedleg!