#TUC13 Congress - Monday (Housing Debate)

This is my speech from this morning's
Housing debate – Composite 6. The first time I have spoken at Congress.

"President, Congress, John Gray from UNISON seconding Composite 6

Congress - We welcome this opportunity to broaden out the debate to include the private rented sector, where so many working people and their families now find themselves living.

It is now the case that more people live in the private rented sector than in the whole public housing sector combined, be that traditional council housing, or homes provided by housing associations or ALMOs

This is something that we suspected in our union for quite some time - from surveying our members - and it’s something that we now know to be true, amongst the wider public.

The English Housing Survey for 2011-12, published earlier this year shows this rising number of private tenants, 3.84 million, which now outnumbers the 3.8 million in social housing, for the first time since the 1960s.

Congress, this is not a good news story.

The private rented sector is where you are most likely to find housing that fails to meet the decent homes standard,

The private rented sector is where you will find the most insecure tenancies

And it is the private rented sector where you pay most.

Surveys suggest tenants in the private rented sector, typically pay more for their housing, than all social tenants and owner occupiers – with rents, typically, 41 per cent of their income – this is 21 per cent higher since 2010 while wages have stagnated.

The recent Home Truths report from the Resolution Foundation, found rents to be unaffordable for families on low to middle incomes, in one third of the country.

And on top of that are the rip off charges and fees levied by the cowboy letting agents

The £500 administration fees to secure your flat

The £210 to change a name on a tenancy

The £96 just to renew your terms

This is bad news for all of us - but it’s particularly grim for the young, with half of all private renters now under 35

What kind of future is that, for our young people? The worst of all worlds. Paying the most – and having less left over, every month, to save for a deposit

As the Housing Voice campaign makes clear, we need housing to be a political priority – rather something left to a market, that does not deliver for ordinary people on ordinary incomes.

Being a political priority, is the only way we get the comprehensive housing policy for the future, which will secure the new council and housing association homes that we need.

Regulating the private rented sector has to be a big component of that comprehensive policy.

We want more security for tenants

Rent increases brought under control

Landlords registered and standards driven up

And not for profit letting agents established

Congress, please support this composite"

(Update: if you have trouble sleeping you can watch the speech here - 31 minutes into Congress)

#UNDC13 Affordable, Safe, Adequate, Secure Housing for All - Wednesday

This is my speech to conference while moving a NDC amendment to to Motion 33 which was orignally from my branch and was adopted by London Region at our AGM.

Conference, your NEC believes that it is important to add to the main motion's call for more and better homes for all, the evidence found in the recent report by the Affordable Homes Alliance, Housing Voice, which is supported by UNISON.

The report evidenced the need for a mass house building target of at least 250,000 homes per year for the next 20 years - including at least 80,000 local authority and housing association homes.

Conference, this target is achievable. The simple fact of the matter is that there is a desperate and absolute housing shortage in this land. And there is no good reason for this shortage.

Remember the first Labour government 1945-1950 despite the economy being ruined by the 6 previous years of total war built one million new homes. While at the same time it built the National Health Service and the modern welfare state. In the 1950’s it was not uncommon for 300,000 new homes to be built, every single year. At its peak in my lifetime in 1968 we built 353,000 homes. The great majority at affordable rents or mortgages.

Conference, while I don’t think anyone here really doubts that we will need increases in progressive taxation in order to pay for all the things that we want to improve our society - to get people back at work, building things, making things, doing things of value to our community rather than just rotting on the dole.

Which will save public money and get the economy growing again. We also need to look at different ways of funding the new homes we so desperately need.

Housing Voice also evidenced and called for at least £5 billion of the billions of pounds currently being spent by the Bank of England on buying government gilts – the so called Quantitative Easing (QE) programme. To be invested instead in low cost housing bonds or other similar measures that that can be used to fund new build instead of lying around in bank vaults.

We should also mobilise the trillions of pounds in workers public and private pension funds to invest in homes rather than shinny new City office blocks

Conference, the simple fact of the matter is that we face a housing famine and that for too long housing need has been ignored. We need to build more affordable, safe, adequate secure homes for all and we need to think out of the box a little on how to fund it.

Conference please support this amendment please support this motion. (both were passed. Picture of vote from unison website)

Housing Voice ‘To Have or Have Not? Taking Responsibility for Tomorrow's Affordable Homes Today"

I left TUC Congress early today to return to London for this morning's launch of the Housing Voice report at the House of Commons.

Housing Voice is an independent affordable housing alliance with cross party political support. For the past year they have carried out a national inquiry, taking evidence up and down the Country.

Over 60 organisations and 3000 individuals have given evidence. Today the report was published. I was there to make a response on behalf of UNISON. This is the press release and full report.

 

There was around 40 people present including MPs from all the main political parties. On the main panel was Liberal Democratic Stephen Gilbert MP (who said he was the only MP to be still living at home with his parents), Conservative Mark Pawsey MP and Labour Shadow Housing Minister, Jack Dromey MP. 

Not everyone agreed with everything in the report but there was more consensus than I expected.

There is lots and lots of good proposals but one of the big ideas is to use £5 billion of the recently announced £50 billion in Quantitative Easing (QE) to buy low interest housing bonds rather than government gilts. This money is then used to invest in affordable housing. 

 

In many ways the problem and solution to the crisis in affordable housing is the bleeding obvious. There is an absolute shortage of homes in all tenures - home ownership, social housing and private rented. Nearly everyone gets this big picture, this is why nearly 50% of UNISON members have grown up children still living at home.

Supply and demand means that cost of housing in many parts of the UK is simply unaffordable.  The only market solution to reduce cost is to build more new homes. The only social solution is to build more new homes with genuinely affordable rents.

 

Over the next 3 years we will spend only £4.5 billion on building new social homes while we spend a staggering £93 billion on housing benefit.

Lord Larry Whitty introduced the report by saying such is the crisis 250k new homes are needed each year for the next 20 years. Last year only 110k were built.

 

The problem is not planning permission, nor is it a land bank (supply) problem. With huge unemployment in construction and development, capacity is not a blockage either. The problem is money.

Extra government support and QE can be used to provide that money, build affordable homes and get Britain working again. Get people off the dole and build homes, get them paying taxes and spending money in the economy. 
 

I also picked on the recommendation that pension funds are encouraged to invest in new homes. While it is the responsibly of the state to make sure and enable their citizens to have adequate shelter. I can say as a pension trustee that schemes are crying out for suitable vehicles to invest in long term, secure, inflation linked products such as residential housing.

The problem lies with many advisers and fund managers who think its all just "too difficult" and prefer investing in warehouses and retail because that is what they are use to.  Unlike the rest of the world where pension schemes actively invest in residential property.   

Appropriately the meeting stopped at 11.30 just after the Parliamentary bell rang for prayers. I'm not religious but I did have another bleeding obvious thought.

 

(I was pleased that afterwards Jack Dromey MP agreed to speak at a future meeting of my UNISON Housing Association branch). Check out Red Brick account of meeting here.

Housing Voice Independent Inquiry: London & SE

On Thursday I made a verbal submission to this inquiry. Housing Voice is the "campaign alliance established to champion the need for more affordable homes to buy or rent". The inquiry is gathering evidence across the country on ways to combat the "affordable housing crisis". Lord Larry Whitty is chairing the inquiry (seen in centre of picture with panel members Steve Hilditch and Michael Ward).

Heidi Alexander MP for Lewisham East and on the CLG Select Committee (left) spoke as did UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis.  There were 18 speakers listed! "Housing Professionals Voices", "Voices of those at the sharp end"; "Labour Voices", "Local and Regional elected" and "Other voices".  There were politicians from across the political divide. Residents and a wide range of other people with interest in affordable housing took part and contributed.

There was disagreement about the solution but no-one denied that we have an appalling housing shortage and that homes are currently unaffordable especially in London. Access to land with permission to build, planning and finance seems to be major barriers. Solutions offered included housing co-operatives, deregulation (House Builders Federation) and greater regulation (of private sector including rent controls: not I think supported by the HBF), funding from pension funds.

I think the role of public funding is absolute key and while there is a lot that can be done to improve supply and affordability at the margin, without a significant funding in state funding we will not resolve the crisis. We will only get the funding when we can raise the political interest in housing to match that of education and health.

Labour London Assemby member Valerie Shawcross was the last speaker. In the Q&A some Housing Associations got a bit of a pasting from the politicians over their variable management standards, being so fragmented, inefficient, arrogant and unaccountable.  

I'll post my submission later.

"Housing Voice" - for Affordable Housing in Britain

On Thursday I went to the Parliamentary launch of Housing Voice the Affordable Homes Alliance
in the Jubilee Room of the House of Commons.

The meeting was hosted by it's Chair - Lord Whitty (2nd right). This cross Party campaign has been formed to raise awareness of the lack of affordable homes across the UK and the need for
urgent government action. Lord Whitty also spoke at last week's UNISON housing fringe.

David Orr, the Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, Shadow Housing Minister Alison Seabeck MP (speaking) , Alison Graham of Child Poverty Action Group, Roger McKenzie, Assistant General Secretary, UNISON and Stephen Gilbert, the Liberal Democrat Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing spoke at the launch.

UNISON sponsored the launch and YouGov research which has showed that:-

• 71% of the public do not think the Coalition Government is giving much attention to affordable housing
• For those in private rented accommodation affordable housing is their biggest concern after the economy – 40% compared to 28% for health and 18% for education
• Building more homes for rent would be a very popular policy with 70% support - including a majority of supporters of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or Labour
• Given a list of possible policies, less than half (40%) supported the idea of increasing supply by moving people from their council or housing association homes once their incomes rise above a certain limit
• A massive 18% - almost 1 in 5 – always or often struggle to pay their rent or mortgage

"The Housing Voice campaign aims to become a forum for ideas and a vehicle for action in order to build public awareness and push for urgent Government action to deliver more affordable housing"

So all good stuff. What I found interesting was:- Lib Dem Stephen Gilbert MP recognising that we have 250k new households per year but we are only building 125k new homes per year; Alison Seabeck MP thinks that there are votes to be won in planning but too many MPs think it will lose them votes.

David Orr pointed out that countries such as Finland and Norway plan to build 7 homes per 1,000 population to adequately house their people. This would have meant the equivalent of 420k new homes in the UK. We only built 100k last year - the smallest number since 1923 - when our population was half it is now.

Former Housing officer, now an Assistant General Sectary of UNISON, Roger McKenzie, reminded everyone that we we do live in one of the richest countries on the planet but if people do not have dignity, jobs and homes then life becomes intolerable.

Alison Graham of CPAG pointed out how can children who live in awful housing succeed in education if they smell of damp. (Which as a housing officer I know what she means) Toby Lloyd of Shelter was really pleased that at this launch that there was a wide spread of players and not the usual "housing suspects".

  

Finally, in the Q&A I mentioned that there seems to be a clear connection between countries cited in the debate who have good housing policies for all and are also those countries who are more successful because they are more equal. This would seem to support the arguments put forward in "The Spirit Level" book that societies that are more equal are simply better for everyone - rich and poor.

Update: forgot to add that Alison Seabeck MP had previously agreed to be a guest speaker at a UNISON Housing Association Branch Labour Link meeting, which we now hope will take place early September.