Saturday 26 September 2015

The Needs and Aspirations of the Majority

Owen Jones writes:

Think the Tories are the party of homeownership?

Consider research assembled by Labour: there are almost 250,000 fewer English and Welsh homeowners since David Cameron became prime minister.

Even more staggeringly, the number of homeowners aged under 34 has plummeted by 50%. Home ownership is now at its lowest level for nearly three decades

Government schemes such as “Help-to-Buy” (never say the Tories aren’t clever at branding bad policies) have succeeded in pushing up house prices, perversely making home ownership even more of a fantastical dream for millions.

And the legacy of right to buy – other than an epic social housing crisis – means that nearly four out of every 10 of the homes sold off under the scheme are now being rented out by private landlords. 

So here is a great opportunity for Labour, and the left more broadly. Nearly eight out of 10 Britons aspire to homeownership

Finding strategies to boost home ownership, while improving the quality of people’s housing options more broadly, would demonstrate that Labour and the left have policies to satisfy the needs and aspirations of the majority of people in society: to build a coalition of low-income and middle-income people.

It would be part of a triple-pronged strategy.

Firstly: an ambitious programme of building council housing, to bring down the 5 million-strong social housing waiting list, reduce the housing benefit bill, create jobs and stimulate the economy.

Such council housing should surely be according to the spec of Nye Bevan: of a better quality than private housing, and intended to foster mixed communities, rather than ghettoise the poorest.

Secondly: to control private rents(again, reducing housing benefit spending) as well as introducing security for tenants.  And thirdly: to extend homeownership without flogging off desperately needed social housing.

There are a number of policies that can be pursued.

Stamp duty is a regressive tax: why not abolish it, and replace both council tax and stamp duty with a land value tax instead, which would prove fairer to both low-income and middle-income Britons?

One-in-seven British workers are now self-employed: many value their independence, but are not so happy with the insecurity, and that includes difficulties in being accepted for a mortgage.

And then there’s promoting, say, local authority mortgages for those who cannot currently get on the housing ladder.

The left can only win if it offers policies that inspire both low-income and middle-income Britons – that is, the majority of society.

That means those who are really struggling in life, and those who are doing OK, but for whom life is insecure and who worry about the future of their children.

The art of surprise is surely important in politics.

You would expect the left to champion the renationalisation of the railways, but not to, say, champion self-employed people and homeownership. 

After all, socialism is not standing up for the interests of, say, the bottom 15% and attracting enough sympathy from anybody else, but creating a society run to meet the needs and aspirations of the majority, rather than run as a racket for a tiny elite.

Labour should say it loud: under the Tories, homeownership is becoming an impossible dream – and it is only Labour  that can realise the hopes and aspirations of the majority.

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