Beckett mulls end to tenancy for life
Housing minister Margaret Beckett is considering proposals that would end the right to a tenancy for life, reports have suggested.
The Chartered Institute of Housing floated the idea of an end to tenancy for life in a policy document, Rethinking Housing, last month.
The document was intended as a response to the government’s housing reform programme, which is expected to result in a green paper within the next few months.
Now The Times newspaper has suggested Mrs Beckett is studying proposals that mirror the CIH’s thinking. These include introducing a system of ‘flexible tenure’ where all new social lets can be reviewed after a period of time.
If a tenant’s circumstances have improved they would be presented with a menu of options:
- advice on low cost home ownership
- advice on private renting
- advice on moving to full ownership
- increased rent
The CIH paper stated that sticking with existing terms and conditions would not be an option.
The newspaper also suggests that ministers may be considering controversial proposals to require unemployed social housing tenants to seek work or face possible eviction.
These ideas were put forward by Mrs Beckett’s predecessor, Caroline Flint, and were widely condemned by the social housing sector. The CIH’s tenancy for life proposals have also proved unpopular with many tenants and housing professionals, although there has been some support for the suggestions.
A spokesman for the Communities and Local Government department said no decisions have yet been made, but that Mrs Beckett is considering all the available options.
What do you think of ending tenancy for life? Have your say in the forum
View results 10 per page | 20 per page
Have your say
You must sign in to make a comment
Readers' comments (14)
Barbara Iqbal | 10/11/2008 10:47 am
I do not agree with the proposed reduction of security of tenure and will probably not renew my membership of the CIH next year.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Sandra Martin | 10/11/2008 2:14 pm
At the very least a re-think on how low cost housing can be distributed in a much fairer way than is the case at present.
A gradual increase to market rents for tenants who are on incomes above a certain level and the option to move on would be fairer all around.
Why should one person be paying full rent on the open market and another a very low rent? How is this fair?
Housing needs income and this is one way of generating some.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
michael barratt | 10/11/2008 2:38 pm
New Labour policies in recent years have done much to undermine work security and pay of the low skilled. Now New Labour appears to be hell bent on introducing the same fear and uncertainty into the home by scrapping the security of tenure of council tenants using the expedient of characterising tenants collectively as being a bunch of delinquent hoodies, teenage mum’s or ‘two jag’ liberty takers. Why not bovver one or two bankers instead they are evidently in need of such heavy handed tactics and a bit of bullying.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Ged Quayle | 10/11/2008 4:30 pm
So regardless of the opinions of tenants and those of us actually working directly with tenants the government seems determined to take away the rights and security of the low paid and lower skilled. If someone had to sit down and plan a way to alienate the modern core labour vote they couldn't do better. Electoral deathwish.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
David Wardle | 10/11/2008 5:03 pm
How can the government profess to have any commitment towards sustainable communities if security of tenure is removed from council and housing association tenants. Only when people feel that they are secure in their homes will they develop a genuine interest in the wellbeing of their community. How many government ministers would agree to linking their work and housing in such a way? How would 'improvement in circumstances' be measured? Who would make the decision and on what criteria? Are housing officers going to have the power to access tenants' bank accounts? We are in the midst of a housing crisis which actually gives some opportunities for social housing to portray itself as something other than a last resort, but this will make the sector a last resort only there for those with no money, no job, no choice and no security.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Peter | 10/11/2008 9:26 pm
Since 1979, I have lost my job four times and had to change careers three times because of government policies. I lost my home twice and have given up the idea of owning my home. This proposal is extremely draconian unless the government can guarantee full employment which is highly unlikely. This is why social housing with its secure tenancy in its current form must remain!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
john souray | 10/11/2008 10:49 pm
This is a piece of non-news. There is no government Press release or statement. Actually the government response is very diffident; it just states that Margaret Beckett is looking at all options for the deferred green paper. How has this come about? Someone has clearly leaked it to the Times, whence it has been picked up by other judgemental middle class tabloids whose support could have been predicted. Who has done this thing? Someone, I would guess, who has decided to by-pass any attempt at honest debate and instead tried to force the pace by news management. A dirty day's work indeed.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Mr. Sharabi | 10/11/2008 11:00 pm
I do not know what all the fuss is about. All these tenants who have it easy living on the social and letting the Council pay the Housing Benefit or Local Housing Allowance, are so lucky to be alive. They have all the time in the world to spend with their children, since they have no (official) jobs, whereas the poor working and middle classes have to go to work to make ends meet and also miss out on all those valuable hours with their children - talk about neglect! Then there is the issue about anti social behaviour....the workless who get to stay at home to do nothing, have all the time in the world to safeguard their possessions, whereas the poor working and middle classes have to come home from work to find that their houses have been burgled, their cars vandalised or stolen, their children bullied and beaten up, their wives abused at and spat on, and all because the welfare state has empowered the jobless to get away with doing nothing but cause all the anti social behaviour in the first place, which is causing the lives of the working and middle classes (especially the ones who live in mixed communities) to become a misery.
Wake up single mothers! And start educating your children with morality. You may have lost it yourself; there is no need to shun your spawn from it. Wake up jobless fathers! And start getting up early so that you can get to the jobcentre during human hours and hopefully into a pattern that can suit your working life. Face it, its plain embarrassing when your children are getting up earlier than you, and they don’t even have the potential to earn - unless you count all the 'unofficial' money they make from hawking stolen goods wearing their favourite hoodies. Ok that’s enough of my rant; actually, the whiskey’s finished.......
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Meric Apak | 11/11/2008 1:29 am
Please visit www.moonlightrobbery.org.uk to see facts and figures proving that it is council tenants who are subsidising the treasury, and not the other way around. Since 1997 nationally £17billion of council tenant’s rents money has not been returned in Management and Maintenance Allowances. It is a disgrace for this government to asset strip council housing, thus creating an artificial socioeconomic disaster which means only the most disadvantaged qualifies for a council home, which in turn leads to the stigmatising of council tenants as scroungers, and second class citizens. We need more council housing for every one who needs and wants one for life. That way we can attract the plumber, the doctor, the architect, the shop-keeper, and we can build strong, stable, and genuinely mixed communities.
Meric Apak
Chair, Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations
11-17 The Marr
Camden Street NW1 0HE
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Harry Lime | 11/11/2008 9:25 am
Whilst I don't disagree with the notion that there is an element of funds being diverted away from the HRA and into the public purse Meric, it's rather remiss of you to try and make your case without acknowledging the very high proportion of people in social housing receiving ful or partial HB, therefore I would deem the majority of the figure quoted as a "correction" in terms of recouping some of those funds back into the public purse - lets not forget the Housing Corp funding that gets the housing up in the first place (in the current funding regime) is public funds also.....
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment