The Limits to Housing Policy in the UK: 2010-2016
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Social Sciences
Abstract
When the UK's Coalition government first came into power in 2010, they did so with a pointed critique of the current housing market. In their 2011 'Housing Strategy for England', the Coalition outlined a number of significant issues surrounding housing, citing problems of affordability, investment and supply, and promising a 'new approach' (HM Government, 2011: vii-1) intended to directly address these issues.
However, despite this explicit commitment, the policy choices made under both Cameron administrations seemed to suggest wholly different priorities, with Tunstall (2015: 6) concluding that the first managed 'no significant and unambiguous successes' in meeting its housing goals. Indeed, virtually all of the most prominent policies around housing in this period ultimately proved counterproductive: cuts to housing benefit through caps and the imposition of the 'social rented sector size criterion' (or 'Bedroom Tax') have adversely affected the affordability of the rented sector, the introduction of 'Help to Buy' has been strongly linked with continued house price inflation, and cuts to funding for social housing (traditionally set at 50% of the market rate for rents), combined with the introduction of new 'affordable housing' (set at 80%) and the re-extension of 'Right to Buy', have resulted in further depletion of social housing stocks and contributed to the 'pricing out' of poorer tenants. Given this stated commitment to increasing the supply and affordability of housing, the central question that this research project seeks to answer is: why did UK housing policy from 2010-2016 so consistently fail to achieve its goals? The project proposes to make sense of this puzzle by employing a 'critical political economy' (CPE) approach to the question of housing, examining how its changing role within the wider UK economy (and in sustaining economic growth) necessarily shapes, conditions and limits prospective policy solutions to the problems of unaffordability and insufficient supply.
The research objectives of this project are as follows:
1. To trace empirically the development of UK housing policy from 2010-2016, both in terms of policy content and social outcomes;
2. To situate this development within the wider political economy of the UK, outlining in both theoretical and practical terms the role played by housing in creating and sustaining economic growth throughout this period;
3. To identify, on this basis, possible underlying 'structural' reasons for continued policy failure in this area, and potentially to indicate a direction for its future success.
However, despite this explicit commitment, the policy choices made under both Cameron administrations seemed to suggest wholly different priorities, with Tunstall (2015: 6) concluding that the first managed 'no significant and unambiguous successes' in meeting its housing goals. Indeed, virtually all of the most prominent policies around housing in this period ultimately proved counterproductive: cuts to housing benefit through caps and the imposition of the 'social rented sector size criterion' (or 'Bedroom Tax') have adversely affected the affordability of the rented sector, the introduction of 'Help to Buy' has been strongly linked with continued house price inflation, and cuts to funding for social housing (traditionally set at 50% of the market rate for rents), combined with the introduction of new 'affordable housing' (set at 80%) and the re-extension of 'Right to Buy', have resulted in further depletion of social housing stocks and contributed to the 'pricing out' of poorer tenants. Given this stated commitment to increasing the supply and affordability of housing, the central question that this research project seeks to answer is: why did UK housing policy from 2010-2016 so consistently fail to achieve its goals? The project proposes to make sense of this puzzle by employing a 'critical political economy' (CPE) approach to the question of housing, examining how its changing role within the wider UK economy (and in sustaining economic growth) necessarily shapes, conditions and limits prospective policy solutions to the problems of unaffordability and insufficient supply.
The research objectives of this project are as follows:
1. To trace empirically the development of UK housing policy from 2010-2016, both in terms of policy content and social outcomes;
2. To situate this development within the wider political economy of the UK, outlining in both theoretical and practical terms the role played by housing in creating and sustaining economic growth throughout this period;
3. To identify, on this basis, possible underlying 'structural' reasons for continued policy failure in this area, and potentially to indicate a direction for its future success.