Cover Story: Syriza the day

Can Corbyn and Healey bring social housing in from the cold?

Love or loathe his wider politics, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has thrust social housing onto the agenda, and into the heart of the political process, but it’s up to the tenure’s supporters to make the most of this unexpected Parliamentary ally

By Mark Cantrell

This article first appeared in the October/November 2015 edition of Housing magazine

THE Prime Minister described the situation as a threat to our national security, our economic security, and even our family security.

Despite being a tad on the hyperbolic side, it’s a pretty apt description of the housing crisis. There was just one slight snag – that’s not what he meant. David Cameron was taking a potshot at the gatecrasher to the party – Jeremy Corbyn – and by extension all those people who had the temerity to cast their vote his way, rather than for one of the three mainstay contenders that were Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall.

Presumably, given the Prime Minister’s comment, MI5’s going to be pretty busy over the next few months dealing with all those dangerous subversives who so rudely interrupted the political status quo. Meanwhile, love him or loathe him, Corbyn is now the leader of the Labour Party and of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, and to cap it all – despite the mainstream media’s best efforts – he appears to be making a rather respectable show of it all. That just wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Islington North MP was, of course, expected to be something of a comedy candidate, the token Lefty ‘also-ran’ destined for a swift return to backbench obscurity. Well nobody’s laughing now. Even so, we haven’t quite heard the last of his epitaph, written well before he won the leadership election, that here is the man who led the Labour Party to electoral oblivion in 2020.

That may well be a portentous warning. It might also be nothing more than wishful thinking, hurled out in a fit of pique by a media commentariat and a political establishment not used to being placed on the backfoot by the ‘little people’. So it goes. Just what impact Corbyn will have on Labour’s fortunes in the General Election nearly five long years from now is in all honesty impossible to say with any real certainty.

After all, pundits decreed we’d have another coalition government right now; instead we have a Conservative government with a slender majority. Received wisdom knew Corbyn was heading back to the backbenches after a brief moment in the limelight, but there he stands as leader of the Opposition. Politics can be a fickle game.

Corbyn’s political opponents may yet topple him, if and when they deem it politically expedient to do so; on the other hand, he may continue to traduce expectations and find himself propelled into Number 10. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

In the meantime, the political dynamic has been disrupted. Corbyn has disturbed an ideological equilibrium that has prevailed for nigh on 20 years between the main parties contending for government office.

Regardless of our individual regard for his views on any number of issues, his wildcard entry into frontline politics has got to be a tonic for the health of our national democracy. Whether it can translate into any beneficial impact on the bread and butter concerns we ‘ordinary mortals’ face is another matter, of course. Much like the Conservative Party – or indeed the housing world – the Labour Party is a broad church of competing factions. Inevitably, Corbyn must – indeed has – built himself an internal coalition. Opposition, like Government, is no one-man band.

In a roundabout way, this brings us back to the trials and tribulations of the housing world. Like it or not, what we still nominally call the social housing sector must work with what it’s got, especially at a time when it needs all the political allies it can get.

Regardless of his wider political package, Corbyn represents a seismic shift in the political landscape. He has thrust housing into the heart of the political arena, a situation further reinforced by his appointment of John Healey MP as shadow housing and planning minister.

Both have made it clear that social housing is a must-have part of any package to solve the housing crisis. In so doing, they have cracked the cosy – dare one say lazy – consensus of recent years that has all but said we can have any solution to the housing crisis, so long as it is based on some form of home ownership; it’s the only politically correct solution.

Well, Corbyn is no Messiah, he may not even be a naughty boy, but in this context at least, he’s certainly not one for political correctness gone mad.

There’s more to legislation and policy than Government. There’s Opposition too. For a sector so ready to declare itself willing to work with the former, it can’t then become squeamish at the prospect of working with the latter, especially when it has made housing, especially social housing, such an important part of its stance.

For those of you committed to social housing as an integral and essential part of the solution to the housing crisis, Corbyn is a natural ally. You don’t need to agree with his wider politics. The housing world must ask itself what’s more important to it – solving (rather than profiting from) the housing crisis or maintaining appearances of political respectability.

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Reaction: Shifting the spectrum?

Betsy Dillner, director of Generation Rent

The election of Jeremy Corbyn has rocked UK politics. There are many huge implications of his victory that are far too weighty for a humble campaign organisation to comment on, but it is safe to say that, in this corner of the policy world, it marks a major development in the political response to the housing crisis.

Housing reached new heights on the political agenda during the General Election, with Labour offering real regulation of the private rented sector, the Greens pushing them further on taxation and rent control, and the Conservatives trying to defuse the concerns of the priced out. Upon resuming power, the Conservatives announced reform of landlord taxation and proposed measures to improve enforcement of housing law – though they continue to pursue damaging policies like Right to Buy 2.

Initially it seemed that the Labour leadership contenders, after flirting with market intervention under Ed Miliband, might retreat into orthodoxy and omerta on housing policy. But Corbyn made housing one of his major themes – and went above and beyond what Labour offered at the election, with unabashed rent control, a programme of council house building, and even the extension of right to buy to the private sector.

This tone clearly resonated with younger voters who are facing lifetimes of renting, who flocked to take part in the election. Now that he’s Leader of the Opposition, the housing debate, already chugging along, should go up a gear or two. Corbyn has appointed a team of shadow ministers with a focus on housing, including John Healey, a housing minister in the last [Labour] government and an active campaigner on social housing.

With a huge amount of scrutiny already descending upon his leadership, Corbyn’s team should ensure that his proposals for the housing market are robust. Generation Rent has called for rent control as an immediate solution to the enormous burden renters are under, but this cannot sustainably compensate for a shortfall in supply. Our model of rent control includes a mechanism whereby a landlord can charge a higher rent in return for payment into a local pot to build social housing.

We’re also calling for a secondary housing market that is shielded from the effects of house price inflation. Houses would be built and sold at a discount on the condition that they could only be resold at a regulated price.

Private renting will only keep growing over the next decade, along with demand for policies that will fix the housing crisis. Corbyn has a chance to forge a new vision for the housing market and we hope he and his counterparts in the other parties will develop real solutions.

Tom Murtha, retired housing association chief executive, and social housing campaigner

Earlier this year I wrote about the victory of the anti-austerity party in the Greek election. I predicted that the media, bankers, financiers and other supporters of neo-liberalism would fight back to protect their interests. I fear that the same thing will happen following the overwhelming victory of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership elections.

We are already witnessing the demonization of the new leader in the media and elsewhere, no doubt coordinated by those who have the most to lose both financially and politically from his policies. It is too soon to say if he will crash and burn as the Syriza Party did in Greece.

Yet if we look at what he is saying there is much for us in social housing to welcome. What other party leader has used his first questions to the Prime Minister to ask about housing, welfare reform, health and other issues? All of which are directly relevant to the social housing sector.

The anti-austerity movement provides an economically viable alternative to the neo-liberal status quo that currently dominates politics in the UK and beyond. It argues that we should invest in the welfare state and elsewhere and reject the cuts to social security and allied services that have devastated the lives of so many people who live in social housing. It argues that we should invest in our infrastructure including social housing because we need homes that are truly affordable to those in need, and because it saves money and boosts the economy. It recognises that social housing is a tenure to be proud of and supported for the role it plays in providing a decent home which is a foundation for hope and opportunity in many people’s lives.

This belief is exemplified in the choice of John Healey as the shadow housing minister. He is someone who understands and supports social housing. He played a major role in the creation of SHOUT which campaigns for social housing. He realises the financial and social benefits of government investment in social housing. I doubt if he supports all of the new leader’s policies, not many of us do, but he is willing to serve because he knows that millions are suffering because of the austerity ideology.

Many of these people live or would want to live in our homes. They have been demonised and suffered cuts in their income and their living standards. They are being priced out of living in decent accommodation and can no longer afford to live in some areas. I believe that many people supported Jeremy Corbyn because his alternative view gives hope to these people and more. If he provides hope in this bleak wilderness I for one am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I am pleased that many young people have been enthused by his campaign. There is another lesson here for social housing. If we really want to bring about change and improve the lives of those we were set up to help, we must break out of the housing bubble and reach out to those who would not normally get involved. Crowd sourcing questions for the Prime Minister is a great example of this. If you are open and show people that you have vision and values and integrity they will support you. We need our leaders in social housing to do the same.

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Further industry reaction:

TERRIE ALAFAT, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “It’s good to see that the new leader of the opposition has identified housing as a top priority. It is one he shares with the electorate. It will be interesting to see how he approaches housing policy – I think it will stimulate more public debate about how we can tackle the housing crisis.

“John Healey, the new shadow minister for housing and planning, has experience of the housing brief in government and it is good to see the shadow housing minister being given a place in the shadow cabinet, which reflects housing’s importance.”

HENRY GREGG, assistant director of the National Housing Federation, said: “We welcome the appointment of Jon Trickett MP [as shadow community secretary] and John Healey MP and congratulate them on their new roles. We look forward to working with them on ways to end the housing crisis. We are especially keen to talk to them about ways that housing associations can boost the nation’s affordable housing supply and about the fantastic work that housing associations do in their communities.”

This article first appeared as the cover story to the October/November 2015 print edition of Housing magazine. It subsequently appeared on the Housing Excellence website, 6 November 2015. 

Photo: Ninian Reid. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved