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Better Nation

It’s time to stop treating homes like stocks & shares

Mar 26

Posted by Jeff in Housekeeping | 7 Comments

Housing is suddenly back on the news agenda with George Osborne trying to reinflate the housing bubble with his dubious ‘Help to Buy’ scheme. Meanwhile the bedroom tax looms large on the horizon, primed to wreak financial havoc on those least prepared for it. So for all the coalition Government’s huffing and puffing, the imbalance between haves and have nots looks set to continue, as does the widening inequality between rich and poor.

The house that George built will be one where the well off hoover up second homes on cheap Government-backed credit while people are evicted from their homes because they have a ‘spare’ bedroom and nowhere else to live. It is utterly depressing and a change to how we view property is surely required, both for our selves and across the country, be it Scotland or (much less likely) the UK.

Conflating a roof over our heads with a commodity to be bought and sold for profit has gotten us into a terrible mess, and it’s time we all faced up to it.

It seems clear that a major problem across the country right now is that there aren’t enough homes for people to live in. Housebuilders are desperate to get on with building while families sit on waiting lists to get into council housing. The Bedroom Tax is therefore understandable, if unforgivable in its current form. For one thing, it is too narrow in focus. The housing shortage is across the UK as a whole. The Government shouldn’t ringfence and punish the poor simply for being poor, they should be looking to free up capacity by looking at where most spare homes exist. The unavoidable truth is that most spare homes are already held as second, third and fourth properties by individuals trying to make an easy gain in the rentals and long term bricks and mortar markets.

What would happen if second properties were banned overnight? Supply would explode, prices would plummet, everyone would be able to move up a rung or two on the ladder and, crucially, space would be vacated within the lower one-bed and two-bed markets. This would allow new homeowners to move out of the rented space, or even out of social housing altogether. This would surely free up capacity more efficiently and more equitably than the Bedroom Tax will. The main difference is that the pain would be spread across the country and not just those on housing allowance. Isn’t that what ‘we’re all in this together’ is all about though?

After all, who loses? Not many people other than amateur real estate magnates and overseas property speculators. Do such people deserve sympathy in these straitened times? Not for me, a one house per individual/couple rule makes perfect sense to me if we are to assuage the greed and selfishness that is causing so many unnecessary problems. Put simply, why should anyone own two or three houses when there are so many people who can’t afford to live in one, owned or otherwise? It’s just wrong on the most basic level.

There is, admittedly, an issue regarding individuals who are investing their savings in property in order to safeguard their pensions, but if this is detrimental to society then those savings will just have to go elsewhere. Needless to say, more properties on the market, lower house prices and more homeowners should in theory pull the housing allowance bill down and allow the pension entitlement to go up.

I don’t for one second believe that the UK Government will adopt this idea, but there is an opportunity here for Yes Scotland if they want to sell a vision of a truly different way of life. After all, if Scots don’t want to make these kinds of radical shifts in the way we run things then what is independence for?

And hey, it passes the social democratic litmus test for lefty Scots…. Sweden already does it.

Men for independence

Mar 25

Posted by James in Elections, Equality, Europe, Parties | 25 Comments

KILTSThe SNP’s six-man shortlist for the European elections was announced at the weekend. Sorry, not quite: five-man and one-woman. In 2009, the last time the SNP selected for Europe, they managed exactly the same poor gender ratio. In 2004 they selected eight candidates, of whom only the seventh was a woman. In that election Janet Law would have been elected only if the SNP had won every single MEP slot going.

Their list for 1999 was somewhat better, with three women out of eight, although again none were in a winnable position. You have to go back almost twenty years to the pre-PR days of 1994 to find the last time an SNP woman was elected to the European Parliament: the indomitable Winnie Ewing, of course.

There’s been plenty of chatter about the gender gap on the referendum, and rightly so. Yesterday’s figures showed 47% of men in favour of independence compared to just 25% of women. What with the European elections coming just a few months before that vote (which is therefore inevitably being seen already as a mock referendum rather than the election of mere MEPs), you might have assumed the SNP would have taken this opportunity to select a decent gender-balanced list.

There’s still a second stage to go, of course. Predictions of Alyn Smith’s deselection following the NATO debacle might yet effectively come true. Questions might be asked about Hudghton’s total absence of public profile. It’s possible that the one woman on the list, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, will come out ahead of those two sitting MEPs, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Even if she does, it’s no good for the sexist old guard in any party to claim they just select on merit when over and over again they keep picking more men than women. After four selections in a row, it’s not possible to claim that’s a coincidence, especially when more than 70% of the MSPs the SNP elected in 2011 were also blokes. The SNP do in fact have a lot of first-class women, both activists and those already elected, and more of them should have got the nod here, through a formal gender balance mechanism if necessary. It can be done.

Why do I care? First, I want to live in a society where the best people are selected and elected, not one where being a bloke comes with a massive advantage – and yes, I know there are other inequalities to consider too. Second, until the referendum’s won or lost, that vote is the prism through which almost all of Scottish politics is examined, and I want a win. How the SNP behave is inextricably and unfortunately tied to public perceptions of independence itself, and results like this make it look like a future Scotland will be a business-as-usual boys’ club.

Declaration of interest: Natalie McGarry, of this parish, was one of the women not to make the cut, which I think is unfortunate. This post was all my own idea, and I have shown her it once complete only for any factual corrections.

Let’s get this parity started

Mar 21

Posted by Jeff in Holyrood | 12 Comments

Circle your calendars and pencil your diaries. Now we know. The independence referendum shall take place on Thursday September 18th 2014.

This changes nothing of course and yet it changes everything, for both sides. It’s real, it’s on, be galvanised or go home.

With every passing milestone I must admit I am more and more eager for this to be a Yes victory. Long gone are the days of watching this constitutional debate unfold clothed in the comfort blanket of ambivalence.

There may be nothing like the zeal of the converted but there is simply no shaking the sense that the country I want to live in would more likely evolve from an independent Scotland than from an enduring United Kingdom. 

Good luck to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but taking our place alongside the Denmarks, the Swedens, the Irelands and the Norways has a dizzying appeal that is too exciting not to grasp.

Genuine equality, combatting poverty and the way we treat our elderly are just a few areas ripe for reappraisal, by all Scottish political parties, if we can just wipe the slate clean and put into place easily imagined Scottish solutions for Scotland’s problems. 

Higher taxes in return for a higher quality of life and a more selfless society is my particular vision, I’m willing to take my chances with my Yes vote that that is what we’d get in the near future too.

It’s a narrower view than considering matters in a British context but that doesn’t make it narrow-minded. The negotiations after a Yes win won’t be pretty but that wouldn’t make them petty. 

Even the debate over whether we’d be richer or poorer after the ‘divorce’ from the UK misses the point. It’s who you want to fight for, what culture you want to bring your kids up in and who you want to get out of bed and contribute your little bit of GDP to that matters. 

Like so much in life, Sept 18th will no doubt come down to who wants it the most. Only 546 days to find who that will be, but I’m backing blue.

Scrapping the Bedroom Tax – scraping the barrel

Mar 20

Posted by Guest Blog in Economy, Holyrood | 21 Comments

A guest post from 3p Steve.

Whatever you choose to call it, the UK Government’s “Bedroom Tax” (/spare room subsidy / under occupancy reduction) is one of the most controversial of its welfare reforms, especially in Scotland.

I don’t know if that’s because such a large proportion (almost 80%) of affected households contain a disabled tenant, or because there are so many different examples of the injustice of the measure, from separated parents, to service personnel to foster carers. But whatever the reason, there have been protests all over the UK, and both the Labour party and the SNP have come out strongly against it.

The Scottish Government, perhaps prompted by the Govan Law Centre and others, have written to councils and social landlords encouraging them to help where they can by reclassifying bedrooms and avoiding evictions. At council level, SNP-led Dundee council and Green-led Brighton and Hove council have both promised there will not be evictions resulting from arrears accrued due to the bedroom tax.

But the despite all of this, the UK Government remains firm, and will impose the bedroom tax from next month on 105,000 households in the social rented sector in Scotland, taking around £53 million out of the pockets of some of the poorest and most vulnerable.

Some have called on the SNP Government to stop the tax, who in turn have argued that the only way this can happen is with independence – they don’t have the powers, the means, or the money to stop it.

But now, thanks in part to George Osborne’s budget today, that’s simply not true.

The Scottish Government have been given enough extra money in today’s budget to undo the bedroom tax. By coincidence, as a result of Barnett consequentials, the Scottish Government will receive an extra £55 million in the next financial year.  Now according to the Scottish Government’s own analysis, that’s almost exactly the same as the £53 million needed to reverse the bedroom tax in full. There is a technical issue around capital and revenue budgets but, without going into too much boring detail, that shouldn’t be an issue: the Scottish Government generally transfers money from their revenue budget into the capital budget so they have the wiggle room they need to transfer a bit back.

What about the powers? Benefits are mostly a reserved matter, however, as Ian Smart shows on his blog, councils have powers to help out the poorest, and what’s more there is a well known and loved precedent – free personal care for the elderly.

What about the mechanism? Well up until the introduction of universal credit (which may never happen!) housing benefit will be administered by councils. That basically means that between them, the Scottish councils have to keep a list of all the households affected by the bedroom tax – they will know exactly who is affected and by how much their housing benefit is to be cut. There is nothing to stop these councils either not applying the cut to housing benefit (and making an internal budget transfer to cover the difference), paying the amount to the relevant social landlords directly (in many cases this will be the council itself, so again simply an internal budget transfer is all that is required) or paying the money in cash to the tenants affected. All councils need from the Scottish Government is for them to pass on the Barnett consequential money.

So if we are serious about stopping the bedroom tax in Scotland it’s good to know that we have the cash, we have the power, and we have the means. The only question is, does the Scottish Government have the political will?

The Byrne Legacy: the messy reality of the workfare vote

Mar 20

Posted by Guest Blog in Parties, Westminster | 50 Comments

A wee guest this morning from Duncan Hothersall on the Westminster workfare vote. Duncan’s a Labour member who (he says) talks too much on Twitter. He used to be big in LGBT rights, now he dabbles in broader politics. He helps to run Scottish Fabians, a left-leaning members-led think tank, blogs less often than he’d like to for various sites including Labour Hame and Bella Caledonia, and eschews the description “unionist” despite favouring Scotland remaining within the UK. In real life he works in online education.

Liam ByrneYesterday evening the bulk of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster followed instructions and abstained on a vote about the government’s widely disliked workfare scheme. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne is not a popular figure on the left – or even in the centre – and if anything the list of rebels who voted against was smaller than might be expected.

After all, it is not hard to understand the principle that work without pay is immoral, anathema to Labour values, and Labour should oppose it at all costs.

And indeed the wailing and gnashing of teeth has been loud and long, and Byrne is probably only spared a more vicious bout of in-fighting by virtue of the fact that the budget will take over the headlines tomorrow.

But why would Labour fail to oppose workfare? Why would we abstain on a measure which is clearly an undermining of the fundamental right to fair pay? The answer, it seems to me, is that this vote was not about workfare or the right to fair pay. It was, as real life often is, far more complex, and messy, than a choice between right and wrong.

First of all, we need to remember that last month’s judgement by the Court of Appeal did not rule workfare to be forced labour, for all the rejoicing at the outcome. In fact the court ruled substantially in the government’s favour, only failing them on how they described the schemes in regulations. So far from welcoming this judgement, we should have been regretting it, because all the government needed to do was change the regulations – which they did the very same day – and then work out how to avoid repaying docked benefits, which was always going to be relatively easy for a government with a working majority.

And that solution – not workfare as a whole, not the principle of withholding benefits, just the issue of avoiding repaying previously docked benefits – was the subject of yesterday evening’s vote. So Labour did not abstain from a yes/no vote on workfare after all. Workfare is already in place, and the result of the vote would not have changed that.

Byrne has been criticised most vocally for asserting that Labour agrees with the principle that the DWP should have the power to impose sanctions. This has been painted as a shift to Tory ground. But in reality, Labour’s flagship programmes of recent decades – including the widely praised New Deal – had sanction provisions. This is no change in Labour policy, and those making hay out of it now must surely know that.

Messiest of all, Byrne believed he could, in return for abstention, secure concessions from IDS which flat-out opposition would not achieve. Among them, he sought a guarantee that wrongly sanctioned JSA claimants could still appeal that decision. And he asked for an independent review of the sanctions regime, to report to parliament quickly. Most significantly, he called for a Real Jobs Guarantee for young people, involving a paid job for six months, rather than unpaid workfare. It remains to be seen whether these concessions have been achieved, but they are surely worthy aims.

There is no question that yesterday evening’s vote didn’t look good, and those who want to will be able to make trouble within the party over it. And Liam Byrne may quite reasonably be unpopular for past choices. But if we are to debate the rights and wrongs, let us at least do so with reason. This was not a vote in favour of unpaid workfare; it was abstention on an issue the government would win anyway, in order to try to achieve a slightly better outcome for those affected.

That’s not a great soundbite, is it. But aren’t we always saying how much we hate soundbite politics? Here is politics in the raw. It’s an ugly thing and people get hurt by it. Let’s make sure we argue it honestly, and place the blame correctly.