Back to Political Basics. Two: Housing and Poverty

 Interesting fact from last night’s Westminster Hour (BBC Radio4, 22:00hr, 11th of December). Across the UK there are one million planning permissions for new homes that are currently active. There is of course a long-standing housing shortage and has been for many decades. Why is this? It certainly is not because bureaucracy and red tape is standing in the way. 

Housing, whether a flat or house, lies at the root of poverty in the United Kingdom. The condition of one’s home, whether it suffers from damp, how much it cost to heat, whether it is big enough, all feed into a family’s level of health, both mental and physical. It is shocking that a young boy, Awaab Ishak, died this year of mould inhalation, despite his parents putting in multiple appeals for help from the responsible housing association. An extreme case but illustrates the point: a warm, well-insulated dry home supports good health and reduces pressure on local health services. The same is true on the other end of the age range: a well-designed home, with enough space to facilitate walking aids and a wheelchair, help the infirm and those of advanced old-age stay in their homes for longer. 

Important too is the location of a home. The national census aids central government and local authorities allocate necessary services but it is a truism that we all need good local schools, access to health services, and reasonable transport routes for the majority of people who are not able to work from home. Required also is access to supermarkets. While there is often grumbling if a new supermarket goes up in a more affluent area, poorer estates and rural locations are often in desperate need of easy access to the cheaper food that comes with sophisticated supply chains. 

A house is the most expensive purchase for the vast majority of people they will ever make. Whether one owns or rents, the monthly payments we make accounts for a larger part of one’s pay packet, and this is particularly true now interest rates are on the rise. The threat of losing one’s home is a constant pressure because it is easy to see what the outcome is when it goes wrong: people end up on the streets, or families are packed into single rooms of bed-and-breakfast by local authorities, sometimes for years. 

So, my question is this. Since housing is so vital to the health, prosperity and prospects of literally all of us, why is the construction of new homes, and the management of rental accommodation, left largely to market forces? If you can afford it, fine, go out and buy a nice home for yourself. Most people can’t, not without taking on massive amounts of long term debt. That debt may not end with retirement. Either one’s home has to be sold in order to cover the cost of longterm care, or people take out a lifetime mortgage to cover the cost of no longer earning. Either way, it means that increasingly for the next generations, the cycle of struggle to keep a roof over one’s head starts again. 

It is clear that the major house building companies do not act with a view to long term social responsibility. They act to maximise their profits. Which is fine. However, it is a shame that successive governments continue to fail to act to address the injustices that market forces continue to create. It is perfectly feasible for government to all this, as occurred after the end of World War II. The current system that the UK has results in poor and expensive housing outcomes for the majority of people in the UK. 

This cannot, should not, be allowed to continue.