New Labour, Same Old Tory Housing Policy?
| Author | Dave Cowan,Alex Marsh |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.00319 |
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
REPORTS
New Labour, Same Old Tory Housing Policy?
Dave Cowan* and Alex Marsh**
For the first time in 23 years, the government has produced a Green Paper on
housing – Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All – which has ‘set out [the
New Labour] vision for housing in the new Millennium’.1In the intervening
period, housing policy has not remained static – indeed, the landscape of housing
policy has been dramatically altered by a series of White Papers.2The role of local
authorities has shifted towards ‘enabling’, rather than providing, new social
housing; housing associations – which, along with local housing companies, are
now termed Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) – have become major providers of
social housing; the private rented sector has been deregulated; considerable levels
of private finance have been levered into the social housing system; demand for
social housing has bottomed out in certain areas; mortgage finance of owner
occupation has undergone dramatic shifts as a result of deregulation during the
1980s.3New Labour itself, prior to the Green Paper, has progressed its own
housing-related policies such as Best Value,4alteration of the local authority
financial regime,5allowing councils to phase in the spending of capital receipts
from the sale of their stock on specified projects,6and various initiatives derived
from the Social Exclusion Unit concerned with neighbourhood renewal.7Indeed,
the government is keen to locate the Green Paper as one policy statement in an
ongoing stream of policy developments.8
ßThe Modern Law Review Limited 2001 (MLR 64:2, March). Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
260
* Department of Law, University of Bristol.
** School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol.
1 (London: Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions [DETR] 2000) para 1.3; its
predecessor was Department of Environment (DoE), Housing Policy – A Consultative Document
Cmnd 6851 (London: HMSO, 1977).
2 DoE, Housing: The Government’s Proposals Cm 214 (London: HMSO, 1987); New Financial
Regime for Local Authority Housing in England and Wales: A Consultation Paper (London: DoE,
1988); Our Future Homes: Opportunity, Choice and Responsibility Cm 2901 (London: HMSO,
1995).
3 Compare the concerns in D. Cowan, Housing Law and Policy (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1999) with
those in A. Murie, P. Niner and C. Watson, Housing Policy and the Housing System (London: Allen
& Unwin, 1976).
Local Government Act 1999: A New Consensus?’ (2000) 63 MLR 84.
5Modernising Local Government: Capital Finance, Consultation Paper (London: DETR, 1998); A New
Financial Framework for Local Authority Housing: Resource Accounting in the Housing Revenue
Account (London: DETR, 1998).
6Capital Receipts Initiative: Guidance to Local Authorities, (London: DETR, 1997).
7A National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal (London: Cabinet Office, 2000); see also the various
reports of the Policy Action Teams especially the following: Neighbourhood Management (London:
SEU, 2000); Anti-Social Behaviour (London: SEU, 2000); Report by the Unpopular Housing Action
Team (London: SEU, 1999).
8 See, for example, the subsequent DETR, Our Towns and Cities: The Future – Delivering an Urban
Renaissance (London: DETR, 2000).
The last Conservative government’s housing White Paper was subtitled
‘opportunity, choice and responsibility’. Opportunity concerned individual and
private sector entrepreneurialism, particularly through new technologies; individual
choice was to have been maximised through housing policy; and responsibility
concerned empowering individuals to make their own choices rather than rely on the
state.
9
These key themes for housing policy are equally evident in the New Labour
Green Paper, both in terms of their content and underlying message. So, for example,
the ‘key principles’ of the New Labour housing policy are said to be, inter alia,
‘offering everyone opportunity, choice and a stake in their home, whether rented or
owned’; and ‘giving responsibility to individuals to provide for their own home
where they can, providing help for those who cannot’.
10
Thus, despite the rhetoric,
there is historical continuity in the themes of housing policy. As we argue below,
there is also continuity in much of the substance of housing policy.
The Green Paper probably comes at an important juncture for housing policy.
Since the 1995 White Paper, housing academics have debated whether housing
policy even has a future.11 The conclusion seems to be that, if it does have a future,
it will be very different from its past. This is because a number of dramatic shifts
during the twentieth century have combined to alter the conception of housing
policy: the retreat from public sector provision of housing, increasing reliance on
private finance and markets, global economic structures, shifts in the consumption
of housing towards ownership and away from renting, and shifts in finance away
from ‘bricks and mortar’ towards individual subsidy.12 Housing policy itself is
subservient to other concerns generated by the labour market, social security,
social exclusion, and economic policy and it is within these policy areas that much
policy relevant to housing is now formulated.13
This contingent nature of housing policy means that solutions are not readily
available through housing policy itself. The Green Paper reflects this through its
‘greenness’ – that is, policy proposals are simply not formulated in many crucial
places. On the crucial questions of the day – what to do about housing benefit and
the poverty trap? what to do about rents in the social sector? what to do about
standards in the private rented sector and for owner-occupation? – concrete
proposals are relatively modest or a range of options are advanced for discussion
and debate. Where solutions are proffered, generally these are extensions of policy
directions set by the previous government (such as the proposed sale of council
stock through stock transfer,14 ‘local lettings’,15 strategic role of local authorities,16
9Our Future Homes: Opportunity, Choice and Responsibility, Cm 2901 (London : HMSO, 1995) 3.
10 n 1 above, para 1.5.
11 G. Bramley, ‘Housing Policy: A Case of Terminal Decline?’ (1997) 25 Policy and Politics 387; P.
Malpass, ‘The Unravelling of Housing Policy in Britain’ (1996) 11 Housing Studies 459; P. Malpass,
‘Housing Policy: Does it Have a Future?’ (1999) 27 Policy and Politics 217, and subsequent critiques
by M. Kleinman, 229 and P. Williams, 231. The White Paper was regarded as a ‘revealing document
for it shows quite clearly the lack of policies designed to address current problems in the housing
market’: Malpass (1996) 468.
12 Perhaps the most dramatic example of this shift came in the early 1990s after the failed attempt to
shadow the Deutschmark caused interest rates to rise and subsequent mortgage failure to occur. For an
overview, see D. Maclennan and G. Pryce, ‘Global Economic Change, Labour Market Adjustment
and the Challenges for European Housing Policies’ (1996) 33 Urban Studies 1849.
13 Bramley, for example, refers to ‘a whole range of de facto housing policies [such as social security,
planning, financial regulation, private finance, regeneration] masquerading as something else’: n 11
above, 403.
14 A policy which has been ongoing since 1986.
15 See Housing Corporation, Performance Standards (London: Housing Corporation, 1997) Standard
H2.2.
16 See DoE, Housing: The Government’s Proposals, Cm 214 (HMSO, 1987) ch 5.
March 2001] Housing Policy
ßThe Modern Law Review Limited 2001 261
To continue reading
Request your trial