TPAS: Pay to Stay Is 'Aspiration Tax'

The government’s Pay to Stay policy is an “unfair tax on aspiration”, TPAS has said. The Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS), along with campaign group Social Housing Under Threat (SHOUT), has published case studies which it believes shows the policy has negative impacts.  The paper says the government’s plans to increase rents up to market rent for social tenants with incomes of £30,000 or more (£40,000 in London) will hit people who are not well off and cause hardship. TPAS and SHOUT also argue the policy will increase welfare dependency and be difficult to administer. The policy is compulsory for councils but voluntary for associations. Download a copy of the document from the TPAS website.

SHOUT Produce Scathing Parliamentary Briefing

The SHOUT campaign for social housing have produced a Parliamentary Briefing in response to the publication of the Housing and Planning Bill. Their briefing “focuses on the sections of the Bill which particularly affect social rented housing and the people who live in it", and specifically covers the details of some specific sections of the bill. On the hot topic of the day, Right to Buy for housing association tenants, the briefing notes that “SHOUT supports the Right to Buy, but only if homes sold are replaced in the same area and at genuinely affordable social rent”.  Download the briefing form the SHOUT website.

Build 100,000 Social Rent Homes a Year and Slash the Housing Benefit Bill

Investing in 100,000 new social homes a year would save the country billions of pounds in housing benefit, according to new major research. And the report from Capital Economics says “the economic and fiscal case for building new social rent housing is unanswerable". Compiled on behalf of the housing campaign SHOUT and the National Federation of ALMOs, the 'Building More Social Rent Homes' report warns that, if left unchecked, current housing policies will see the cost of housing benefit soar to nearly £200 billion over the next few decades. Download a copy of the report from the Housingnet website.

SHOUT Campaign for Social Housing off To a Great Start

The SHOUT campaign (social housing under threat) got off to a great start with a successful launch event in Parliament. Speakers from the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green parties spoke in support of the importance of social rented housing as a major part of solving the housing crisis. There was considerable cross–Party support for the SHOUT Manifesto. Although not everyone agreed with everything – with political differences most notable around the right to buy – there was a strong consensus in support of building more homes for social rent and in favour of the case for moving back from ‘benefits to bricks’. In an interesting contribution, Gary Porter called for all the political parties to put the removal of council borrowing for housebuilding from the public borrowing requirement in their manifestoes. Read more on the Red Brick blog.