Next Tory leader

[3141]

The point I was making is that he wasn't an MP at the time, whereas some are implying that someone not an existing MP can't become PM.

Thanks. My recollection of the details clearly isn't what it ought to be! I've just looked him up, and been reminded that he was PM for twenty days without being a member of either House. But the return of Parliament after the summer recess had been postponed till he could win a fortunately available safe seat. Also I've discovered that it wasn't a baronetcy that gave him the title Sir Alec, but because he'd been appointed a Knight of the Thistle a few years earlier.

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

Why can't you do that?

Because applying social housing rules to someone who isn't under the scheme and instead owns their own homes is a violation of private property rights.

Just because a rule is already applied in one area doesn't mean the same type of rule can't be applied somewhere else.

That would be just like a school deciding that some students are to take an exam for a subject they aren't studying because other students who are studying that subject have to. I mean why not? If the rules of having to take an exam apply to students studying the subject, then the same type of rule can be applied somewhere else right?

It may matter to society at large if there is a housing shortage. You may be aware, for example, that both second homes and empty homes can incur significant extra taxes.
If they can already have a higher tax rate for unoccupied homes, why can't they have a higher tax rate for under-occupied homes?

Probably because the government feels that unoccupied homes are a waste of property purchases, and quite honestly I don't understand why you would buy a house you're not going to live in when someone else could be living there (if they could afford it of course), and in fact you probably pay more because of this reason. I don't know how government decides it though. But in the case of under-occupied homes, there is someone actually living there, and therefore it couldn't be considered anywhere near as much a waste of property purchasing.

In both cases though someone might convert all these bedrooms to something else though, so really it would be hard to decide on whether or not it is actually under-occupied. I mean you might tax someone for having an extra bedroom, but then they could just convert it and get around it easily. There's not as much getting around the fact that a house is unoccupied (as in nobody currently has it listed as a personal living residence, which in my opinion should define whether a home is occupied or not) as it is under-occupied where you can easily change a bedroom into something else. Not really an enforceable tax in the end.

The government has the right to do pretty much what it wants, as long as the majority of people support it (and often when they don't, but that's a different debate).
(Not saying I agree with it, but I think it's a plausible proposition.)

The government does not have a right to do pretty much what it wants. It might decide it wants to install surveillance cameras inside your personal home, but that is against the law and is a human rights violation. Just because a government can theoretically do something doesn't mean it has the right to do so. Someone can murder another human being, but they don't have the right to do that.

 

[tony_mac]

Because applying social housing rules to someone who isn't under the scheme and instead owns their own homes is a violation of private property rights.

We are obviously talking about creating an applying an equivalent rule for private properties. I don't think this is a difficult concept, but you seem incredibly hung up on this issue.

I don't understand why you would buy a house you're not going to live in when someone else could be living there

as an investment, for example.

In both cases though someone might convert all these bedrooms to something else though,

that is hardly an insurmountable problem (same as the 'bedroom' tax, it doesn't matter what you actually use the room for ).

The government does not have a right to do pretty much what it wants. It might decide it wants to install surveillance cameras inside your personal home, but that is against the law and is a human rights violation.

The government can obviously change the law. It can also choose to withdraw from any human rights conventions it has previously signed up to. (although taxing private property is unlikely to be a breach of human rights).

 

[furnessvale]

I know what the bedroom tax is. It was a cut in benefits for those living in social housing if they had a spare bedroom. It's not even a tax that anyone is paying. So strictly speaking, it couldn't even extend to those who own their own home because they don't live in social housing. Anybody who owns a house nowadays clearly isn't on a low enough income to have social housing provided to them, and if you own your home out right, you will not get housing benefits, so how can you even extend these rules to everyone else? It would be more of a bedroom tax to have people pay extra council tax based solely on the fact that they have spare bedrooms.

You clearly have no understanding of the bedroom tax. May I suggest you look into it. May I also suggest the you look into taxation rules. The government already tax people for what they have in their private property. You pay capital gains tax on assets, inheritance tax on death etc. I simply suggest that the same rules apply to all and those with a spare room they don't need ( like me) pay a bit more council tax. We could use that money to help build more houses.

As I said, punitive is perhaps the wrong word for those of us not on benefits. For those of us on benefits the bedroom tax is punitive

Houseowners already pay the bedroom tax. Of course it has a different name. It is called a higher band of council tax, which they have to pay for occupying a larger house than they strictly need.

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

We are obviously talking about creating an applying an equivalent rule for private properties. I don't think this is a difficult concept, but you seem incredibly hung up on this issue.

I know I can seem hung up at times, but I just don't think anyone who owns their own home should be taxed more just based solely on the fact they have more bedrooms than what might be needed. I'm not really a huge fan of the so-called bedroom tax either, but I don't know a great deal about that part.

as an investment, for example.

Well I've never owned multiple houses, so I won't entirely understand it myself. But I don't think anyone should be stopped from it really.

that is hardly an insurmountable problem (same as the 'bedroom' tax, it doesn't matter what you actually use the room for ).

Well what really defines a bedroom? If there was a clear definition that the government could work with that couldn't simply be overcome by moving the bed out of the room then it might be easier to sort out.

The government can obviously change the law. It can also choose to withdraw from any human rights conventions it has previously signed up to. (although taxing private property is unlikely to be a breach of human rights).

That wouldn't go well, and it certainly wouldn't be in the interests of any democratic government. There is actually nothing, in theory, to stop the Queen acting against the tradition of only dissolving Parliament when the government asks her too, and instead chooses to dissolve the Parliament and take over as a de facto supreme ruler. Sometimes it'd just better to not do anything based solely on the long-term interests.

 

[DarloRich]

When Bromley Boy in post #144 said you were heading towards confiscation of property you denied it, as people do in such circumstances, but that IS where “applying the same rules to all” would lead to.

I have cut this thread for the sake of space but my word - what utter preposterous wibble. Property confiscation indeed. What world do you live in?

Houseowners already pay the bedroom tax. Of course it has a different name. It is called a higher band of council tax, which they have to pay for occupying a larger house than they strictly need.

As i said before that council tax level is the same for all. There is a discount for being on benefits but it varies by location. There is a case that we should all pay more council tax as the bindings are based on value as of 1991. They don't reflect the reality of the world in 2018.

 

[furnessvale]

I have cut this thread for the sake of space but my word - what utter preposterous wibble. Property confiscation indeed. What world do you live in?



As i said before that council tax level is the same for all. There is a discount for being on benefits but it varies by location. There is a case that we should all pay more council tax as the bindings are based on value as of 1991. They don't reflect the reality of the world in 2018.

WE all DO pay more council tax than we did in 1991. A revaluation to 2018 values would simply adjust what some people paid relative to others but the overall tax take per borough would remain the same.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There already *is* a "bedroom tax" on privately owned homes. Council Tax is higher if you have a more valuable house, and you tend to have a more valuable house if it has more rooms.

OK, there is the single occupancy discount (and I can see the argument for abolishing that), but once you have two or more people in the house it is effectively the same thing.

The actual "bedroom tax" is simply paying the appropriate amount of benefit to provide a house/flat of the appropriate size for the household. It needs some tweaks to avoid people being forced to pay it when no suitable smaller property is available, but with that done I consider it totally fair and sensible based both on the availability of Council housing and the limited money available to fund it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As i said before that council tax level is the same for all. There is a discount for being on benefits but it varies by location. There is a case that we should all pay more council tax as the bindings are based on value as of 1991. They don't reflect the reality of the world in 2018.

The fact that (and I agree) we should pay more Council Tax has nothing to do with relative property valuations. It's purely to do with Councils being underfunded.

My personal view is that both the block grant and capping should be abolished and local democracy should be allowed to do its job. People experience local services much more closely than national ones, and I think therefore the idea of a Conservative Government nationally, but a more left-wing one locally (be that Labour or Lib Dem or indeed anyone else) is likely to be a popular choice. It has often been said that the LDs are a party of local Government, and there are good reasons for that - I would imagine, for example, most people would rather pay a little more for a weekly bin collection[1] than less and only have it collected bi-weekly.

[1] Which we still benefit from in MK despite the very low Council Tax...I love the efficiency and simplicity of unitary authorities shaped to fit the travel-to-work areas of cities, and would like to see the two-level local Government abolished nationally.

 

[Bromley boy]

If you lived in a council house funded by HB guess how much all of that is worth in the calculation? That's right nothing. Move or face a reduction in benefit. Punitive is, perhaps, the wrong word here. While the bedroom tax is punitive to those on benefits it wouldn't be punitive to many of us in work or those of us with assets. I simply suggest the same should rules apply to all. I ask again why are you happy to impose rules on others you wont accept yourself?

In our exchanges I can normally see your point of view, even if I don’t always agree with it. I must say I really do struggle to understand where you’re coming from on this one!

As I see it, you’re simply not comparing apples with apples.

Someone who owns their own property in the private sector has presumably bought it at market value (prices of course increase per bedroom). It is their property bought with their money. If they’ve achieved some success and paid into society and bought themselves a property they love and wish to remain in, good for them. Who the hell is the government to turn round to them and penalise them? They already pay:

- a higher acquisition price for the property (hence higher stamp duty);
- a higher council tax band.

Most importantly, they are not depriving anyone else of the use of this property.

Council houses on the other hand are (or should be!) a temporary safety net for those in need. These properties do not belong to the tenants, who merely have the use of them.

There is a limited amount of housing in the public sector so that which is there needs to be allocated efficiently. Reducing housing benefit for those who selfishly refuse to vacate a property that is too big for their needs, thereby denying it to those with a greater need, seems as good a way of doing it as any.

I agree entirely. The problem has just been shunted onto the next government in line. If only the right to buy money could have been used to build more houses for more right to buy and so on in a cycle.

Agreed. Wasn’t they the original intention? Right to buy sounds like a good idea in theory, but only if the housing stock was replenished as it was sold off.

I know someone who purchased their council house at a massive discount (as they were perfectly entitled to), sold it a couple of years ago and pocketed a six figure windfall (around £150k) I don’t blame them for doing this as an individual - I’d have done the same in their position - but it’s hard not to see a system that permits this as ridiculous. That is another council house that is now out of public ownership forever.

Depending on the terms of your private tenancy you can do that - should that be removed? BTW - I would happily charge those who can afford it a market rent for their property. No issue with that at all.

The point you’re over looking is that someone who wins the lottery who lives in a private flat is already paying market rent for a private property. If they move out someone else will move in and also pay market rent.

Charging a market rent for a council house should never occur in my opinion because:

1. someone able to pay market rent should be renting in the private sector like everyone else!

2. Allowing someone who is able to pay market rent to remain in a council property deprives someone of a greater need who would be unable to rent such a property in the private sector.

 

[Bromley boy]

My wife and I live in a house with 5 bedrooms. We’re aged 78 and 77. When we came here my daughter was here too. Now she’s married and lives elsewhere with her family.

My wife sleeps very badly. At least twice a week she doesn’t get to sleep till around 4 am. It’s pretty disturbing with her getting up to get a drink, having a light on so she can read, putting it off so she can try to go to sleep, putting it on again because she’s still awake, and so on. So we usually sleep in separate rooms.

We have about 3000 books which occupy one of the bedrooms. Another one is an office, which contains about 500 of the books, the computer I’m typing on now, and various papers including those relating to the organisations we are involved with.

One bedroom is a spare, used by visitors including our grand-daughters when they stay here.

Most of our working lives were spent in London or the South East, where properties cost more. We chose to spend a bigger proportion of our income on our homes than some people did, so that we could have a larger one. We didn’t spend so much on cars or holidays. One of our cars had always been bought second-hand, and between 1980, when our daughter was born, and 1998 when she went to university, only three of our holidays were abroad. Most of the rest were in bed and breakfast or self-catering accommodation.

Of course it costs us more to live here. Council tax is higher, though we’re not making much use of local services such as education, and we don’t so far need social services support. Energy, insurance and maintenance are all higher than if we lived in a smaller house.

We made choices that brought us to where we are today. If we’d spent more of our money on other things we might now only be able to afford a house with two or three bedrooms. Or we might have chosen to spend the same amount on a flat in London with just one or two bedrooms. Then no-one could say we should be subject to a “punitive” tax. We know people who’ve sold their house and bought a smaller retirement flat so that they have money they can use on holidays and cruises. It’s their choice. This is ours.

“Punitive” means related to punishment, and you punish people because they’ve done something wrong. Have we done something wrong by choosing to live as we did over the past 45 years? We may move to a smaller home in the future. If we choose one with a living room that’s 16 feet long, when we could manage in one that’s only 10 feet square, should we be punished?

What about cars? We still have two, because we do several different things. One is a nine-year-old Xsara Picasso and the other an eleven-year-old Ford Fusion. It’s useful to have a car that the grand-daughters can fit into, especially since we pick them up from school on three afternoons a week and look after them till their Mum gets home from work. If we buy a new car, should it be a Smart car, because that’s all the two of us need, or should we be punished if we choose something bigger?

We can afford the choices we’ve made. Other people cannot afford them. Who thinks we should pay a punitive tax because of that?

Good for you.

It sounds like you've worked extremely hard and contributed a great deal to society and to your family. You should certainly be enjoying the fruits of your labours during your retirement, not to mention a well earned rest.

I'm sure DarloRich would agree with this, despite being a big soppy lefty at times .

 

[GusB]

You're acting like I'm not grasping this concept that you're advocating, but the only thing I don't understand is how you can try and apply a rule that applies to social housing to people who aren't part of the scheme at all. So what if someone has a spare bedroom in their private house? It doesn't matter to you, it doesn't matter to the government, and whether you like it or not, the government has no right to take more money off people just because of how many bedrooms they have in their own home.

On the other hand, so what if someone has a spare bedroom in their council-owned/housing association house/flat? It doesn't really matter to you, it shouldn't really matter to the government and, whether you like it or not, the government has no right to take more money from people simply because of the number of bedrooms they have.

The housing argument has cropped up on these forums several times. On one hand you have people that work hard and have made sacrifices in their lives in order to pay for their own houses. On the other hand, there are people who will never be able buy their own place. I have no issue with people owning their own homes. My parents struggled to pay for a house that cost £16k (at 1980 prices). What is abundantly clear is that there is insufficient housing for the needs of the country, regardless of tenure. I'm personally in favour of having more "affordable" (council/housing association) properties available to those who will never be able to buy, but at the same time there does seem to be a shortage of properties available to young "professional" people who do wish to purchase their own homes. I look around the village here and while the parents are quite happily settled in houses that they bought a long time ago, their offspring are having to look elsewhere. When I was a kid, the only time I ever saw a "To Let" sign was on commercial property on the High Street. These days it's quite common. Holiday lets also reduce the amount of housing available for people to actually live in.

Yeah, I'm a bit lefty. I believe that decent housing is a basic human right. But that right also applies to people who have paid their way through university, get a decent job in the city, and still find themselves living in a cupboard for a grand a month.

 

[Bletchleyite]

On the other hand, so what if someone has a spare bedroom in their council-owned/housing association house/flat? It doesn't really matter to you, it shouldn't really matter to the government and, whether you like it or not, the government has no right to take more money from people simply because of the number of bedrooms they have.

The Government is not taking money from anyone in this context. That's why the term "bedroom tax" is incorrect.

What it's doing is only giving them the money (when on housing benefit) to cover the cost of the property size they need. I don't see, other than the tweaks I mentioned elsewhere that are needed to safeguard people from issues when a smaller property is not available in their area, why anyone can possibly have a problem with this.

It does not apply to people paying their social housing rent out of their own pocket.

 

[northwichcat]

The Government is not taking money from anyone in this context. That's why the term "bedroom tax" is incorrect.

What it's doing is only giving them the money (when on housing benefit) to cover the cost of the property size they need. I don't see, other than the tweaks I mentioned elsewhere that are needed to safeguard people from issues when a smaller property is not available in their area, why anyone can possibly have a problem with this.

It does not apply to people paying their social housing rent out of their own pocket.

While it doesn't affect me I can see some potential issues:
1. If you take the smallest available property available in your area does it affect you?
2. If, hypothetically, you're a single person without children and the smallest property available is a 3 bed house, then at a later date a 2 bed house becomes available, then at a later date a single bed flat becomes available, are you expected to move property at regular intervals?
3. If, hypothetically, you work a couple of hours per day part time earning minimum wage and have a property within walking distance of your place of work with a spare room, could you be expected to move to another nearby town where you then have to use 1/3rd of your earnings to pay the bus fare to get to work?

 

[northwichcat]

No problem with any of that - as long as it applies equally to rich Tories living in massive houses they no longer need as well as the council house scum. And it is a tax. It is a tax on poor people designed to punish them for being poor and not owning their own home.

The benefit system does punish certain people though. If you're saving up for a deposit for a house and lose your job the money in your account is taking in to account when calculating how much benefit you are entitled to - having £16,000 for a house deposit, even if most of it is in a restricted access account specifically for saving for a first property, excludes you from income based benefits. Having a house worth £250,000 with a mortgage paid off, having £5,000 in savings accounts and £20,000 tucked away in a pension scheme doesn't. While if you pay rent the benefit system helps with that if you lose your job but if you have a mortgage the benefit system doesn't help, except for providing a loan (if it's still a benefit it'll change to a loan very soon) for mortgage interest only.

 

[Bromley boy]

On the other hand, so what if someone has a spare bedroom in their council-owned/housing association house/flat? It doesn't really matter to you, it shouldn't really matter to the government and, whether you like it or not, the government has no right to take more money from people simply because of the number of bedrooms they have.

It does matter to the government (or the council) when they are trying to allocate publicly owned houses. It also matters to those who are perhaps on a waiting list for larger accommodation.

Remember council houses are not owned by the tenants. Therefore if the number of bedrooms in the house the have the use of - not their house - exceeds their needs it’s hardly unreasonable to expect them to move.

Yeah, I'm a bit lefty. I believe that decent housing is a basic human right. But that right also applies to people who have paid their way through university, get a decent job in the city, and still find themselves living in a cupboard for a grand a month.

Very true and this is why in large parts of the south east, London in particular, having a council house will elevate you to a lifestyle beyond the means of those even earning decent salaries.

In London a hell of a lot of people, even those earning salaries in the £30-£40k range, have to live in flat or house shares as renting a flat solo is simply unaffordable.

As commented before I’m in a private block including families raising babies and toddlers in two bed flats they will be paying £1500+ per month for the privilege.

Down the road there is a small group of local authority properties (recently built, definitely not privately owned). These are relatively large, spacious houses with gardens. They contain families with late teenage/adult children who can apparently afford to drive around in £40,000 Mercs and Audis.

Is it any wonder there’s resentment !?

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

Getting back on topic, I was speaking to a relative the other day who thinks that the problem with the idea of Portillo leading the Conservative Party is that apparently very few know who he is. Bit like when Jeremy Corbyn became the Labour leader. Before that he was pretty much, for need of a better word, a nobody.

I disagree like, I reckon a good few people would know Michael Portillo, certainly more than they knew JC, but then I’ve not spoken to many peolple about him. Maybe some of you can say for yourselves whether you reckon if Portillo is well known or not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

While it doesn't affect me I can see some potential issues:
1. If you take the smallest available property available in your area does it affect you?

I don't understand the question.

2. If, hypothetically, you're a single person without children and the smallest property available is a 3 bed house, then at a later date a 2 bed house becomes available, then at a later date a single bed flat becomes available, are you expected to move property at regular intervals?

I would suggest the best way to handle this is that once you end up with an oversized property for whatever reason, you put in a request to move to one of the correct size. Once that request is submitted, housing benefit can continue at the higher rate until the correct size of property becomes available at which point you move.

You could "smooth" it a bit by saying you are guaranteed not to have to move for 12 months. This is the level of guarantee a private renter has. I can see no reason to spend public money putting a Council tenant in a better situation than a private renter.

Though I do think people need to stop thinking of Council homes as a home for life, and start thinking of them as a safe means of shelter while they can't afford to pay for shelter commercially. I think there need to be a few changes to enable that, such as them being provided on the same kind of terms as private rentals, such as them being properly decorated and with white goods provided and maintained as part of the rent. If, as seems to be the case, you have to put your own money into making the home nice, that means you develop an attachment to it - and that attachment prevents the most efficient use of the housing stock. This seems callous, but so long as there are people on the streets we have to make the best use of the public sector housing stock, as having people on the streets is far worse than someone having to put up with living in a standardised magnolia home with no permission to redecorate (i.e. the position every private renter is in, near enough).

3. If, hypothetically, you work a couple of hours per day part time earning minimum wage and have a property within walking distance of your place of work with a spare room, could you be expected to move to another nearby town where you then have to use 1/3rd of your earnings to pay the bus fare to get to work?

That is an interesting question and might need to be assessed individually, for example based on whether alternative equivalent work was likely to be available, and also taking into account the need for carers, friends and family to travel. But the absolute priority is use of a limited resource (funding and public-sector/housing association properties) for the best effect overall. This might mean that 100 people get not quite what they want, rather than 50 people getting in excess of need and another 50 being in a too-small property or even on the streets, but the greater good has to prevail.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Down the road there is a small group of local authority properties (recently built, definitely not privately owned). These are relatively large, spacious houses with gardens. They contain families with late teenage/adult children who can apparently afford to drive around in £40,000 Mercs and Audis.

Is it any wonder there’s resentment !?

While this is hearsay, if that is indeed the case it'd be better that their benefits were reduced to allow them to drive, say, a 5 year old Vauxhall Corsa (or, in London, to use public transport) and to take someone off the streets with that money.

 

[northwichcat]

I don't understand the question.

The smallest property a housing association or council may have may be considered 'too big' for you by the Conservatives.

Though I do think people need to stop thinking of Council homes as a home for life, and start thinking of them as a safe means of shelter while they can't afford to pay for shelter commercially.

So would you scrap Thatcher's Right To Buy scheme?

 

[northwichcat]

While this is hearsay, if that is indeed the case it'd be better that their benefits were reduced to allow them to drive, say, a 5 year old Vauxhall Corsa (or, in London, to use public transport) and to take someone off the streets with that money.

How do you know they are even on benefits? Being on a low income without receiving benefits or being an 'essential worker' like working for the emergency services can both qualify you for council/housing association schemes. Very near me there are some housing association houses occupied by on call firefighters (within 2 minutes walk of the fire station.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

The smallest property a housing association or council may have may be considered 'too big' for you by the Conservatives.

In that case, Housing Benefit should cover the cost in full.

So would you scrap Thatcher's Right To Buy scheme?

Absolutely, yes. It has been the primary cause of the Council housing shortage by flogging off properties for less than it cost to replace them. And any scheme that improves affordability of high house prices simply perpetuates them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How do you know they are even on benefits? Being on a low income without receiving benefits or being an 'essential worker' like working for the emergency services can both qualify you for council/housing association schemes. Very near me there are some housing association houses occupied by on call firefighters (within 2 minutes walk of the fire station.)

If one can afford a premium car, one can afford to rent privately.

 

[Bromley boy]

If one can afford a premium car, one can afford to rent privately.

Indeed, or alternatively if one is on a very low income, lives in subsidised housing and uses this saving to buy expensive cars and other luxuries that would otherwise be beyond their means, that is also a poor use of council resources which should be allocated to the needy.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

At the moment if I have a council house, if I win the lottery, start earning a six figure salary (bob crow!), I can keep living in it. I can even leave it to my kids. That is wrong.

Just like any other benefit, it should be allocated according to need, regularly reviewed and then withdrawn when the recipient’s circumstances change.

I agree with you that it's wrong that someone in that situation can continue living there and paying way-below-market-rents for the house. However, there is an issue that if a house has been a family home for years, possibly decades, then kicking them out of their home because they have more money now hardly seems fair. I'd suggest a better way would be to have a system where if you can afford it, you would be expected to pay the market rent for your council house. [*]

Absolutely, yes. It has been the primary cause of the Council housing shortage by flogging off properties for less than it cost to replace them. And any scheme that improves affordability of high house prices simply perpetuates them.

By the same reasoning as my comments to Bromley boy, wouldn't it be better to keep right-to-buy, but remove the subsidies, so that anyone who wishes to buy their council house can do so, but must pay the full market value of the house, plus a small amount to cover the council's legal fees etc. in selling it. And of course, remove all the restrictions that currently stop councils from using the money to build more council houses. I totally agree with you that in the form it was introduced, right-to-buy has been disastrous. But the underlying principle of letting people buy their homes seems reasonable to me.

[*] Actually a couple of years ago, the Government were proposing to do just that. But although the principle seemed sound, the implementation would've been awful. Under the Government's proposals, people would have to pay market rents, but all the extra money would go to the Government, NOT to the councils - yet councils would still be saddled with the cost of administering the scheme and regularly checking people's incomes. Also, it wouldn't have been a sliding scale, but a hard cut-off at (IIRC) around £40K income - which in London often would not be enough for people to afford market rent so lots of families would end up effectively getting forced out of their homes if they earned more than a certain amount. Fortunately (in my view) the whole scheme appears to have vanished when the Conservatives lost their majority in Parliament last year.

 

[Butts]

Has this thread not gone seriously off the rails ?

If it was "Just a Minute" the buzzers would have blown up with all the deviations.

Let's get back to Ruth Davidson becoming the next Tory leader and Prime Minister

 

[northwichcat]

If one can afford a premium car, one can afford to rent privately.

Presuming there is private property available to rent. In some towns finding private property to rent is like trying to find a Brexiter who's a member of the Lib Dem party, while in others it's like trying to find someone who voted either Conservative or Labour at the last election.

 

[Busaholic]

Thanks. My recollection of the details clearly isn't what it ought to be! I've just looked him up, and been reminded that he was PM for twenty days without being a member of either House. But the return of Parliament after the summer recess had been postponed till he could win a fortunately available safe seat. Also I've discovered that it wasn't a baronetcy that gave him the title Sir Alec, but because he'd been appointed a Knight of the Thistle a few years earlier.

Glad my memory wasn't entirely at fault! As an aside, he was a great gift to the satirists and, in particular, the fledgling Private Eye who christened him Baillie Vass, for reasons I remember not.

 

[Bromley boy]

I agree with you that it's wrong that someone in that situation can continue living there and paying way-below-market-rents for the house. However, there is an issue that if a house has been a family home for years, possibly decades, then kicking them out of their home because they have more money now hardly seems fair. I'd suggest a better way would be to have a system where if you can afford it, you would be expected to pay the market rent for your council house. [*]

I agree with the sentiment but the problem with allowing someone to occupy a council house and pay market rent is that they are taking up a house that could be allocated to someone with a greater need.

I echo the comment above that we should move to a system where council housing is generally only used for people in a time of crisis/need, rather than becoming their family home for decades.

I totally agree with you that in the form it was introduced, right-to-buy has been disastrous. But the underlying principle of letting people buy their homes seems reasonable to me.

Totally agree. A very good idea in principle to empower people and enable them to achieve ownership. Unfortunately the other side of the coin - building houses to replace those sold off - never happened for whatever reason.

 

[3141]

I have cut this thread for the sake of space but my word - what utter preposterous wibble. Property confiscation indeed. What world do you live in?

If someone analysed how many times the word "wibble" appeared on these forums, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be used most often in your posts. You seem very fond of it.

If we had the sort of government that introduced a tax on property owners with more bedrooms than they need to sleep in, it would monitor the results. The purpose, presumably, would be to persuade those owners to move to somewhere smaller. Initially, some would. Others would decide to pay the tax so that they could stay in the place they wanted to be. When the government saw that the rate of moving out of larger properties into smaller ones was dropping, it would be likely to take steps to push it up. Raising the tax would be one step. Such a government might keep pushing up the tax to achieve its social organisational objectives. What might not have been "punitive" to start with would probably become so, accompanied by propaganda to tell people how wicked those owners were if they were trying to stay in the place they had paid for, and to put social pressure on them to move. There's plenty of evidence over the past 100 years of how such governments increase the pressure. If financial pressure doesn't have the desired effect then force is likely to follow: people are shifted to the sort of property the government has decided is right for them. It's unlikely that, in those circumstances, the government would do much to return to the people being moved the additional value of the home they were being moved out of.

I don't suppose all of that is part of your plan; you're probably not looking beyond the implementation of the tax you've advocated and which you've said you'd be probably be paying yourself. But once things start down that sort of road they are likely to go a lot further than their original advocates expected.