Don’t stifle ambition

After all, it was only four months ago that David Cameron assured Inside Housing readers that he had ‘no policy to change the current or future security of tenure of tenants in social housing’.

Although he acknowledged his comments would ‘lead to quite an argument’, Mr Cameron could probably have picked his words to an audience in Birmingham on Tuesday more carefully. Taken at face value, his proposals would effectively say to new tenants ‘once you can afford to pay market rents you’re out’. While, in principle, this would achieve the aim of freeing up more social homes and create the ‘housing chain’ Mr Cameron spoke of, in practice, it would force out high-achievers and create ghettos of poverty.Where then for the so-called ‘age of aspiration’ hailed by housing minister Grant Shapps only in June?

Mr Cameron sees social housing as the safety net or first link in his housing chain, where greater prosperity will quickly see tenants move upwards and onwards to, presumably, better things. What this fails to acknowledge is the fact that social landlords have striven for years to create mixed, stable communities where people want to live. At a stroke, Mr Cameron would undo all this painstaking work and fulfil the mistaken but popular view of social homes as the housing scrapheap.

While aghast at Mr Cameron’s words, social landlords are all too aware of the need to free up existing stock to help reduce the 1.8 million housing waiting list. The national ‘home swap’ scheme outlined this week by Mr Shapps is a great example of the sort of incentive that already works well to give thousands of social tenants the homes they want and need. Other incentives to encourage elderly people to downsize by landlords such as Hanover are proving equally as effective.

Nobody would argue that there isn’t room for improvement in the current system. Social landlords need to demonstrate to the prime minister that the carrot works much better than the stick.