An attempt by senior Labour politicians to make housing allocation policy favour British families trapped on long waiting lists would face fierce opposition from housing professionals.
A call by trade and industry minister Margaret Hodge this week for indigenous people to be given a greater right to social housing than new migrants was criticised by the housing world. The issue has also created a rift in Labour’s high command with Keith Vaz, a member of its national executive committee, signing an early day motion describing the call to give British people housing priority ‘regrettable’.
Ms Hodge’s comments follow former home secretary David Blunkett’s suggestion that two housing waiting lists should be created. One should be set up for people in urgent need, the other for those who do not benefit from needs-based allocation regimes, he said.Labour party chair Hazel Blears, a candidate for the deputy leadership position, backed Ms Hodge’s call for a rethink on allocations policy.
Chartered Institute of Housing chief executive David Butler said the senior MP’s moves took housing ‘in a direction we don’t want to go in’.
‘For a government policy to allow people to come into this country and then deny them access to services is the wrong way to deal with this problem,’ he added.
Mr Butler said the real problem was the insufficient supply of social housing, something most senior housing professionals identified as the greatest source of community tensions in an Inside Housing survey (17 November).
MP Jon Cruddas, the Labour deputy leadership candidate whose Dagenham constituency borders Ms Hodge’s, said she was in danger of ‘racialising arguments over housing allocation’.
Barking & Dagenham Council’s director of housing David Wood rejected the suggestion that refugees and asylum seekers were given priority. He also said lack of supply was the main problem.
The mayor of London has also criticised the demands for a housing allocation policy that favoured the indigenous (see above).
David Lunts, the mayor’s executive director of policy and partnerships, said the number of migrants living in social housing was tiny. A spokesperson for the prime minister said that just 1 per cent of lettings in 2005/06 went to foreign nationals.
Karen Buck, Labour MP for Regent’s Park & Kensington, said she had ‘never seen an economic migrant in areas of high housing need that get housing first’.
‘The real issue is about supply,’ she added.
inside housing
Showing posts with label council housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label council housing. Show all posts
May 25, 2007
May 23, 2007
We need more houses, not divisive housing policies
Margaret Hodge's comments that 'residents' should get priority will only legitimise anti-immigrant sentiment
Margaret Hodge, minister of state for industry and the regions and MP for the east London constituency of Barking, has suggested that long-standing British residents should be given priority over immigrants in relation to housing. Her comments smack of a desperate desire to stop Labour voters from supporting the far-right British National Party (BNP). What they reveal is how out-of-touch ministers are with the people they govern and how sensitive an issue housing has become.
In the Observer last Sunday, Hodge wrote: 'We prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement others feel they have. So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded, privately rented flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area for three generations and are stuck at home with the grandparents. We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants.' (1)
If the indigenous family in question is stuck at home, it's got little to do with immigrants. The real problem is that too few new houses are being built. In 2006, just 167,000 new homes were completed in Britain (2). That's up, the government tells us, on the 2000 figure - but that figure was the lowest since the Second World War. Two weeks ago, I joined protesters outside Gordon Brown's Brighton speech who were angry at rocketing house prices that make it near-impossible for most people to get on the property ladder (3).
Just to replace the UK's existing housing stock, Britain needs to build 266,000 new homes every year - something we've consistently failed to do. John Stewart, economist to the House Builder's Federation, has worked out that the consequence of this snail-like replacement rate is that homes being built today will have to stand for 1200 years!
And then there are the homes we need to build, over and above that, for the new households in Britain. By the government's reckoning that is around 200,000 extra houses each year (4). A lot of that new demand is because of changing lifestyles. Since the 1970 Equal Pay Act, women have been joining the workforce in greater numbers, and bringing home wages. Those wages are the basis of mortgage applications. Conservatives bemoan the loss of the nuclear family, and maybe they have a point, but no one wants to see a return to the days when women had no economic independence. The net effect is that there are more, if generally smaller, households than there were, and we need more dwellings to house them.
Lastly, there is immigration. Recent numbers have been quite high with 160,000 more people entering the country than leaving it each year. This is the background to Hodge's outburst. But it is a big mistake to blame these migrant workers for the housing shortage. They are in many cases the people making the houses. One construction boss says that 70-80 per cent of his workers are not English speakers (5).
The problem is not immigration, it is the low number of new homes being built. While the government says the number we need to build is 200,000 a year across the UK, Britain has fallen short of that figure in seven of the years since New Labour was elected in 1997. And the target is way too low in any event because they have forgotten that homes need to be replaced.
Instead of doing something about the problem, Margaret Hodge says that residents should get houses before immigrants, whether or not they need it more. But playing people off against each other on the basis of where they are from can only make racial divisions worse.
How did a liberal-minded person like Margaret Hodge end up shouting for a racist housing policy? Most likely, she is not personally racist. She has a reputation for being very left-wing (the red flag flew over Islington Town Hall when she was council leader in the 1980s). But she is part of a government that has failed to build the houses people need.
At the last election, Hodge panicked at the canvassing returns that told her that the BNP were doing well in her constituency. Like a lot of her cabinet colleagues, Hodge has little feel for how ordinary people think, and was surprised that they are so angry with the government. Nor does she seem aware that the BNP's support is not very committed, but is just seizing on an issue to express their disaffection. Instead of fighting to win the argument that immigrants are not the problem, Hodge is determined to try and outmanoeuvre the BNP on the right, in New Labour-style 'triangulation'. Such a strategy can only end up making those prejudices seem more sound than they really are by giving them ministerial approval.
It is gruesome to see culturally-liberal New Labour politicians repeating the same Old Labour housing policies that ended up with Tower Hamlets' housing stock being racially segregated under the late Peter Shore's 'friends and neighbours' housing policy in the 1970s. But that is the outcome when you have a government that is too frightened of the Campaign to Protect Rural England to build new homes, and too frightened of the voters to argue with them.
James Heartfield is author of Let's Build: Why We Need Five Million Homes in the Next 10 Years
Margaret Hodge, minister of state for industry and the regions and MP for the east London constituency of Barking, has suggested that long-standing British residents should be given priority over immigrants in relation to housing. Her comments smack of a desperate desire to stop Labour voters from supporting the far-right British National Party (BNP). What they reveal is how out-of-touch ministers are with the people they govern and how sensitive an issue housing has become.
In the Observer last Sunday, Hodge wrote: 'We prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement others feel they have. So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded, privately rented flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area for three generations and are stuck at home with the grandparents. We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants.' (1)
If the indigenous family in question is stuck at home, it's got little to do with immigrants. The real problem is that too few new houses are being built. In 2006, just 167,000 new homes were completed in Britain (2). That's up, the government tells us, on the 2000 figure - but that figure was the lowest since the Second World War. Two weeks ago, I joined protesters outside Gordon Brown's Brighton speech who were angry at rocketing house prices that make it near-impossible for most people to get on the property ladder (3).
Just to replace the UK's existing housing stock, Britain needs to build 266,000 new homes every year - something we've consistently failed to do. John Stewart, economist to the House Builder's Federation, has worked out that the consequence of this snail-like replacement rate is that homes being built today will have to stand for 1200 years!
And then there are the homes we need to build, over and above that, for the new households in Britain. By the government's reckoning that is around 200,000 extra houses each year (4). A lot of that new demand is because of changing lifestyles. Since the 1970 Equal Pay Act, women have been joining the workforce in greater numbers, and bringing home wages. Those wages are the basis of mortgage applications. Conservatives bemoan the loss of the nuclear family, and maybe they have a point, but no one wants to see a return to the days when women had no economic independence. The net effect is that there are more, if generally smaller, households than there were, and we need more dwellings to house them.
Lastly, there is immigration. Recent numbers have been quite high with 160,000 more people entering the country than leaving it each year. This is the background to Hodge's outburst. But it is a big mistake to blame these migrant workers for the housing shortage. They are in many cases the people making the houses. One construction boss says that 70-80 per cent of his workers are not English speakers (5).
The problem is not immigration, it is the low number of new homes being built. While the government says the number we need to build is 200,000 a year across the UK, Britain has fallen short of that figure in seven of the years since New Labour was elected in 1997. And the target is way too low in any event because they have forgotten that homes need to be replaced.
Instead of doing something about the problem, Margaret Hodge says that residents should get houses before immigrants, whether or not they need it more. But playing people off against each other on the basis of where they are from can only make racial divisions worse.
How did a liberal-minded person like Margaret Hodge end up shouting for a racist housing policy? Most likely, she is not personally racist. She has a reputation for being very left-wing (the red flag flew over Islington Town Hall when she was council leader in the 1980s). But she is part of a government that has failed to build the houses people need.
At the last election, Hodge panicked at the canvassing returns that told her that the BNP were doing well in her constituency. Like a lot of her cabinet colleagues, Hodge has little feel for how ordinary people think, and was surprised that they are so angry with the government. Nor does she seem aware that the BNP's support is not very committed, but is just seizing on an issue to express their disaffection. Instead of fighting to win the argument that immigrants are not the problem, Hodge is determined to try and outmanoeuvre the BNP on the right, in New Labour-style 'triangulation'. Such a strategy can only end up making those prejudices seem more sound than they really are by giving them ministerial approval.
It is gruesome to see culturally-liberal New Labour politicians repeating the same Old Labour housing policies that ended up with Tower Hamlets' housing stock being racially segregated under the late Peter Shore's 'friends and neighbours' housing policy in the 1970s. But that is the outcome when you have a government that is too frightened of the Campaign to Protect Rural England to build new homes, and too frightened of the voters to argue with them.
James Heartfield is author of Let's Build: Why We Need Five Million Homes in the Next 10 Years
- A message to my fellow immigrants, Observer, 20 May 2007
- Communities and Local Government Statistical Release, House Building: January to March Quarter 2007, 17 May 2007
- PricedOut, 13 May 2007
- See James Heartfield, Let's Build: Why we need five million homes in the next ten years, chapter one, Audacity, 2006
- Andrew Geddes, Immigrants get older, too, Foreign Policy Centre
May 21, 2007
Minister's homes priority plan angers MPs
· UK-born families should come first, says Hodge
· Don't 'racialise' housing argument, warns Cruddas
The industry minister, Margaret Hodge, yesterday provoked a furious reaction from politicians and refugee groups by proposing that local British-born families should get priority for scarce social housing over newly arrived immigrants, with the exception of refugees.
Her comments in yesterday's Observer brought strong criticism from fellow Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrats and were used by the Conservatives to argue for stronger controls over immigration. Mrs Hodge represents Barking, an east London constituency which was once mainly white working class and is now a racially diverse area. Most of the council housing has been sold under the right to buy and the area has been a target for the British National party, which gained 11 seats on the local council last year.
Mrs Hodge wrote yesterday that the government "prioritised the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement that others feel they have to resources in the community. So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded privately-rented flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area for three generations and are stuck at home with the grandparents." She continued: "We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants."
Mrs Hodge advocated drawing up new rules based on such factors as citizenship, the length of residence and national insurance contributions. But the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell, who tried to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership last week, said: "This is a deeply reactionary and dangerous statement to make. The issue, however, is not the allocation of housing, but the chancellor's failure to allow affordable house building over the last 10 years - resulting in the present housing crisis."
Jon Cruddas, MP for Mrs Hodge's neighbour seat of Dagenham, and a deputy leadership candidate, said: "We're in danger of racialising arguments over housing allocation rather than concentrating on the need for greater social housing provision."
The Liberal Democrat local government spokesman, Andrew Stunell, said: "There are one-and-a-half million families on the council housing waiting list and the Labour government keeps selling houses off. The first thing to do is start building social housing again, not to blame immigrants for the catastrophic government failure to tackle the issue."
The Conservative immigration spokesman, Damian Green, said: "Margaret Hodge is admitting the long-term failure of this government to control immigration. This is why Conservatives are calling for an explicit annual limit on the numbers coming here from outside the EU so that we can avoid exactly the sort of problems she is talking about."
Nancy Kelly, of the Refugee Council, also hit out at Mrs Hodge's comments, saying: "The way to counter some of the views that are put forward by the far-right parties is not by trying to follow their lead." Ms Kelly stressed that asylum seekers were not entitled to council housing and arrivals from new EU states had restricted access to benefits.
"People who are recognised as refugees are entitled to council housing but on exactly the same basis as a UK national, on the basis of need," she said.
Mrs Hodge said last night that she had been misinterpreted by critics, as she both backed an increase in social housing and wanted refugees excluded from any restrictions.
Guardian
· Don't 'racialise' housing argument, warns Cruddas
The industry minister, Margaret Hodge, yesterday provoked a furious reaction from politicians and refugee groups by proposing that local British-born families should get priority for scarce social housing over newly arrived immigrants, with the exception of refugees.
Her comments in yesterday's Observer brought strong criticism from fellow Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrats and were used by the Conservatives to argue for stronger controls over immigration. Mrs Hodge represents Barking, an east London constituency which was once mainly white working class and is now a racially diverse area. Most of the council housing has been sold under the right to buy and the area has been a target for the British National party, which gained 11 seats on the local council last year.
Mrs Hodge wrote yesterday that the government "prioritised the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement that others feel they have to resources in the community. So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded privately-rented flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area for three generations and are stuck at home with the grandparents." She continued: "We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants."
Mrs Hodge advocated drawing up new rules based on such factors as citizenship, the length of residence and national insurance contributions. But the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell, who tried to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership last week, said: "This is a deeply reactionary and dangerous statement to make. The issue, however, is not the allocation of housing, but the chancellor's failure to allow affordable house building over the last 10 years - resulting in the present housing crisis."
Jon Cruddas, MP for Mrs Hodge's neighbour seat of Dagenham, and a deputy leadership candidate, said: "We're in danger of racialising arguments over housing allocation rather than concentrating on the need for greater social housing provision."
The Liberal Democrat local government spokesman, Andrew Stunell, said: "There are one-and-a-half million families on the council housing waiting list and the Labour government keeps selling houses off. The first thing to do is start building social housing again, not to blame immigrants for the catastrophic government failure to tackle the issue."
The Conservative immigration spokesman, Damian Green, said: "Margaret Hodge is admitting the long-term failure of this government to control immigration. This is why Conservatives are calling for an explicit annual limit on the numbers coming here from outside the EU so that we can avoid exactly the sort of problems she is talking about."
Nancy Kelly, of the Refugee Council, also hit out at Mrs Hodge's comments, saying: "The way to counter some of the views that are put forward by the far-right parties is not by trying to follow their lead." Ms Kelly stressed that asylum seekers were not entitled to council housing and arrivals from new EU states had restricted access to benefits.
"People who are recognised as refugees are entitled to council housing but on exactly the same basis as a UK national, on the basis of need," she said.
Mrs Hodge said last night that she had been misinterpreted by critics, as she both backed an increase in social housing and wanted refugees excluded from any restrictions.
Guardian
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