James Meek’s book Private Island has shown how Margaret Thatcher’s neo-liberal agenda followed by successive Conservative and Labour governments sold off our public housing and other national assets. Vicky Spratt now looks in detail at the resulting housing crisis and the shocking reality that there is nowhere in Britain where a single woman on average income can afford to rent or buy a home. 

We are taken through the human cost of this crisis, drawing on testimony from people across the country. We hear the desperation of those living in 21st century Britain with nowhere they can call home, the constant fear of being forced to move by an eviction notice, the awful conditions experienced, the lack of hope and justice at the limited protection of the law.

We start to understand the financial cost of housing for the homeless and those on benefits, and the burden that inadequate housing has on the health service, education and across the broader economy. Most shocking though is the indifference of the parliament on Westminster that has inflicted this crisis on the people, failing to provide that most basic human need, a safe and secure home for everyone.

Why is there a housing crisis?

The first thing to note about the shortage of housing is that it has nothing to do with immigration, frequently used by the press to distract from the policies that were responsible:

• The Right-to-buy introduced by Thatcher, but the largest number of council houses sold off was under a Labour government helping to push up bank profits.  
• The 1988 Housing Act introduced no fault eviction, ended rent controls and lifetime tenancies, taking away basic protections from tenants.
• Buy-to-let created a new market for the finance sector to offer cheap credit to would-be landlords encouraged by the erosion of tenants’ rights. This led to house price inflation being baked into our economy, forcing a generation who couldn’t afford the inflated prices into rental.

How much is the housing crisis costing us?

Poor housing is a drag on the economy, it keeps people sick and unable to work, overcrowding spreads disease. Markers in blood tests, such as C-reactive protein, show that private renters have poorer health. Some of the other statistics include:

• Housing benefit has become a £22bn subsidy for private landlords (p.16)
• 35% of single parents with children live in private rented accommodation (p.66)
• 450,000 households in the private rented sector are headed by someone over 64, and by 2046 this will be 1.5mn (p.76)
• 600 street homeless died in 2017 (p.202)
• 4.3 million homes are below the decent home standard (p.125)
• There are fewer young adults in their own homes than in 2003 (p.251)

The politics of home ownership

The Conservative thinking behind why Right to Buy was good for democracy is summed up as

“… if most people owned their homes they would be less likely to back taxation of property or wealth and would therefore maintain the status quo, and ultimately protect the wealthy because it was in their own interest.” (p.33)

With 63% of households in Britain owner-occupied, policies that promote home ownership and inflate prices win elections. Home ownership and house price inflation have become prioritised, on the one hand people wish to sort out the housing crisis but on the other they are worried about the value of their home and quietly vote for polices that actively worsen the situation.

Housing First

This approach to homelessness started in New York, where those on the street had to resolve complex issues like drink or drug use or get a job before being helped into accommodation. With Housing First a homeless person is housed immediately with no preconditions. It has since been used in Finland, the only country in the world where homelessness is falling, and it is being trialled in Scotland where 82% of those helped have made their home move permanent. (p.222-3)

Housing First is part of the solution, but doesn’t help those trapped in unfit housing or by high rents. What is needed is to build houses to replace the three million council homes that were sold off, rather than houses that are unaffordable, reform tenants’ rights, stop no-fault eviction, offer assured tenancies and lifetime deposits, and provide better enforcement of decent home standards.

The problem was made in Westminster, but it won’t be fixed there…

Throughout the book we see that the parliaments in Wales and Scotland actually care, and are actively working to address the crisis, they have stopped the right to buy and have regulated landlords. Scotland has imposed rent controls and is trialling Housing First. In Wales a policy to improve heating and ventilation in homes with asthmatic children has seen 17% children with severe asthma reclassified as moderate (p.135). As a result my daughter living in a rented flat in Glasgow has a far more secure home than either my son or daughter renting in London.

The puzzle then is this: why is there so little interest in the English Regions having their parliaments like those in Scotland and Wales? Elected by a form of proportional representation (PR), they have shown themselves to be representative of and responsive to the needs of their people. English regions should set their own priorities for Housing, Transport, Education, Health and other services, rather than have them imposed by Westminster. The moves to “level up” or “empower city regions” appears to be more about Westminster wishing to divide and rule in England rather than transfer the power that is already in the hands of the Welsh and Scots.

The straightforward low cost solution is to introduce rent controls and lifetime tenancies, impossible though with a parliament full of landlords ah! but isn’t there an election this year?

Tenants: The people on the Frontline of Britain’s Housing Emergency by Vicky Spratt. Profile Books 2022. (Details here)

Editor’s note: See also Barbara Morrison’s recent series on this topic

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