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From the archive - owner-occupation ‘unacceptably high’

Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week 10, 20 and 30 years ago

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From the archive - owner-occupation ‘unacceptably high’

30 years ago

Subsidies for mortgages should be ended, the chief executive of a building society said, making front page news in Inside Housing.

At the time, tax relief was available for mortgages and had led to unacceptably high levels of owner-occupation among young and old people, according to Tim Melville-Ross, then chief executive of Nationwide. Young people were being forced to buy homes, affecting the mobility of the labour force and increasing poverty, he argued.

He believed owner-occupation led to poverty among older people and said rented housing should be seen as “normal and acceptable, because it appeals to all sections of the community and not just the well off”.

Mr Melville-Ross also criticised the government for its insistence on taking away local authorities’ role as a housing provider.


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Inside Housing in October 1987
Inside Housing in October 1987

20 years ago

Labour’s party conference called for radical changes to the rules for public sector borrowing, which would give councils the same powers to borrow as housing associations.

However the idea was downplayed by Labour minister Hilary Armstrong, who said: “We are happy to consider changing the framework, but it won’t lead to a bottomless pit of gold.”

The housing sector hailed the vote by the conference as a major breakthrough, although previous calls to make the change were rejected because Labour feared the impact on the City. Julian Dobson, Inside Housing’s then editor, said “observers could sense the excitement” over the rule change, and housing professionals were “ready to cast aside their sobriety and cheer the new dawn”. He acknowledged that to the outside eye, it would be a “dry as a bone” debate, but “for those in the know there were recurring visions of wads of money for council housing”.

But he warned that Tony Blair and his colleagues were “in no mood to become conference slaves in the way their predecessors were”, and the change therefore might not happen.

5 years ago

Inside Housing was at the Conservative Party conference where Grant Shapps (below), then shadow housing minister, set out his policy stall. He wanted to give tenants tax breaks if they supported development, in a bid to shake off the Tories’ reputation as the party of nimbys.

Residents could get council tax cuts if more homes were built in their local authority area, he proposed. Other proposals included scrapping stamp duty for first-time buyers and extending the Right to Buy to housing association tenants. The proceeds would be ringfenced for new social homes in the local area.

Throughout the conference, several Conservative higher-ups repeated the refrain that the Labour government’s housing targets were better suited to a Ukrainian tractor factory in the 1950s.

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