The bedroom tax

[jonicomelately]

How can anyone support a Government who inflict this on people? There are no words...

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/brutality-bedroom-tax-exposed-disgraceful-9911421

The debt boom was mainly due to changes that happened in the 1980s to do with who could get debt and how much deposit they needed. These changes led to the debt fuelled era.

Most of the sales from right to buy occured in the 1980s and 90s, there was little point it cutting it off from there. I'll admit Labour didn't build as much council housing as was needed, they could have done more there. However they were repairing the damamge of years of underinvestment in schools, hospitals etc, they were the most important things to do.

The supply issue is the main cause of the price rises, mainly due to conservative policies. The reason the HB bill and all things associated have risen is directly due to these policies.

The Labour party had 13 years to change things that they didn't like. Stopping the sales of council houses would have been the work of a moment. Changing the rules on mortgages was also easy, as has been demonstrated by the current govt.
Introducing better tenancies would also have been simple, if they had cared.
If it was policies of the 80's which caused the issue, why was there no house price growth between 1979 and 1997?

There was house price growth between 1979 and 1997, it rose dramatically then fell again, due to poor economic policies administered by the Tories.

Changing the rules on mortgages post the world financial crash was easy, prior to it the Tories and many others were capaigning for less regulation in the markets, less regulation of the banks etc. Imposing more rules and regulations would have been extremely difficult and because of the way it would have been portrayed in the Tory press, very unpopular.

I've admitted that Labour could have done more to sort out social housing but as previously stated, they were busy trying to correct chronic under investment by the tories in schools, hospitals, public services and the like.

The "Why didn't the Labour party do something" argument is poor, cause it doesn't take into account the financial crisis and the attitudes around before it.

Ah, that is a very interesting chart and I remember those times - the terrible 1970s properties crash and then the crash of the 1990s when we sold at 50% less than we'd paid on two flats. It has certainliy not been a clear constant rise.

There is also the fact here, that the lack of supply of social housing meant that HB goes up. In many cases it isn't untill the mid 90s that the initial buyers moved on, at the same time we have the trend for buy to let increasing, we end up with what was social housing in private hands, at higher rental costs.

Housing Benefit, has in fact helped many, many landlords become very rich.

The private sector were supposed to pick up the slack, but as it suits the private sector to limit supply and keep prices high it didn't.

Buy to lets began in the mid 90's. If it was such an issue, why did the Labour party not do anything? 13 years is a long time

Housing Benefit, has in fact helped many, many landlords become very rich.

Landlords would get their money either way, and lots of HB goes to housing associations anyway. Housing benefit has enabled people to have nice places to live that they wouldn't have otherwise had, and it's kept children off the streets when their parents didn't provide for them. I think people sometimes forget that when complaining about housing benefit, that it's people who can't house themselves that claim it, not landlords.

Change the record Carol, I've said Labour could have done more, but the origin of the difficulites is down to the Tories and you haven't yet been able to refute that.

Oh and Landlords wouldn't be able to charge as much rent if the supply of housing had been kept up.

Labour could have done more, but the main changer of the game was the selling off of social housing.

Anyway, I think this is no longer about the bedroom tax is it?

It has moved on from the so called bedroom tax, but threads do that.

In the same way that you can't blame people for claiming all the benefits they are entitled to when they could choose another way to support themselves, you can't blame individual landlords for rental prices. These things are the fault of the system, not the people who legally take advantage of them.

Selling off social housing has caused problems considering that nothing was done to replace it, but it did benefit a lot of people who would never have been able to have their own homes otherwise.

At least there seems to be a lot of house building going on now. Of course it's not all social housing, but then it shouldn't all need to be. There has been a huge amount of building going on for the last two or three years in my area.

There is a huge amount of building going on in my area, the infuriating thing about it seems to be that its all "luxury" apartments, and even then the builders seem to have been able to get out of building the original number of affordable rent places.

It would be good if the Government would do some house building to make up for the massive under supply over the last 30 odd years, and that of course is the position we are in. Housing is so exepnsive because since right to buy the supply of housing has been in the hands of the private sector, which is risk averse so won't build as much as is needed in order to maximise profits. Successive governments are to blame, and there needs to be a solution.

The issue with it will be, that if supply is increased many people will see the value of their properties fall and be in negative equity, so no political party will do it.

The knock on effects of this under supply are amazing, lower levels of consumer spending (as more is spent on rent/mortgages), causing less investment from firms and the concequent knock on.

Housing becoming an investment business, buy to let, buy to leave, etc etc. More and more money borrowed to invest in this market rather than into other business oportunities.

Rents rising causing the HB bill to rise, causing jealousy over the amount people recieve in benefits. Increased ghettoisation of areas.

Its very interesting, housing has been at the heart of British policy for over 100 years. We are still getting it wrong.

Of course, had we had large house building projects in the late 90's, there would have been much less effect on house prices, so a politically sensible decision.

Oh Carol dear, your argument is very poor there, by that nature, had the money from right to buy that was recieved by local councils been used to build replacement social housing ( as many wanted it to) then we wouldn't have seen it either.

I said it had not been done by "succesive governments" which was not partisan, I get the feeling the Tories could do anything and you would defend it by going :" But look at Labour."

Not at all, you were the one saying it all goes back to the 80's and defending the Labour parties behaviour.
This policy aligns social housing with private rentals in terms of HB and encourages housing associations and councils to build more smaller homes to cope with the changing demographics of our society.
The particular case in the OP was not caused by the policy, but the failure to implement support by the local council.

I think people sometimes forget that when complaining about housing benefit, that it's people who can't house themselves that claim it, not landlords.

much of the inflation of the HB bill is that people can't afford to house themselves in certain areas. HB has been a huge boon to landlords. it's a stupid way to house people.

Not all landlords. We would never touch HB claimants with a barge pole nor would many London landlords as we have lots of transient high paid professionals who want to rent not buy so why pick a benefits claimant instead.

Around 40% of all housing benefit is paid to private landlords, around £9bn a year, there are plenty who are willing to take it.

As to the thing about people n ot being able to house themselves in certain areas, yes thats true, so do we ghettoise the poor, what about all those people who are in work and still need HB to help them?

so do we ghettoise the poor, what about all those people who are in work and still need HB to help them?

do what half of London does? Commute?

Nice idea, but street cleaners and fast food workers probably don't earn enough to spend £10 a day on commuting. London only commutes cause most of those doing it earn a decent salary. MOST of those, some do commute on very little.

Maybe, if the government didn't pay the rent, then employers would have to up wages in order to keep staff.

Nice idea, but street cleaners and fast food workers probably don't earn enough to spend £10 a day on commuting. London only commutes cause most of those doing it earn a decent salary. MOST of those, some do commute on very little.

right. so the answer is to pay the rent?

I have a better solution - pay the transit fare.

Indeed and plenty of Londoners cycle by the way. It certainly irks many that there are a whole load of largely idle londoners who don't even look for jobs in very very expensive areas which full time workers cannot afford to live in. It is taking a very long time indeed to move these out to places like Milton Keynes or outer London boroughs.

It certainly irks many that there are a whole load of largely idle londoners who don't even look for jobs in very very expensive areas which full time workers cannot afford to live in.

indeed. some people with good jobs can barely afford a 1 bedroom (I know some professionals in this boat) while others are entitled to two bedrooms on account of having a child. As housing is a finite resource, there is a cost (not just monetary, but of course that's just exploded as well) to housing people in some of the most sought after (and expensive) parts of the world. Workers want and need that housing.