Levelling-up: The Blair-Osborne Project

by

There have been many attempts in the past to reduce the gaps between richer and poorer parts of the UK. But despite progress on some measures (most notably employment and pay), geographic disparities remain substantial and stubborn, particularly when it comes to productivity. The gap in typical pay between Kensington and Chelsea and Scarborough has … Continued

Solving the productivity puzzle

by

Regional inequalities are a longstanding feature within UK political debate. However, they have gained additional pertinence in the years since the 2008 financial crisis. From the 2016 EU referendum result, through the ‘red wall’ turning blue in the 2019 general election, to the differential impact of Covid-19 across the UK, place increasingly functions as a … Continued

A loan scheme for renters could stop tenants from being made homeless

by

The protracted length of the coronavirus crisis has led to rent arrears reaching twice the level observed going into the crisis. In January 2021, we estimate that over 750,000 families were behind with their housing payments, 300,000 of which contained dependent children. Before the pandemic hit, many families spent a high share of their income … Continued

Young people are no longer footloose and fancy free – and rent rises are to blame

by

Millennials, eh? They never stand still. Always on the move, with their ‘portfolio careers’, side hustles in the gig economy, and no loyalty to the companies they work for. With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder they struggle to find decent work and pay. There’s only one problem with this common trope though. It’s … Continued

Social renting: a working hypothesis

by

Social housing has many virtues: it provides families with a secure home at a reasonable rent, and the state with a smaller benefit bill and an asset to leverage. So what’s not to like? Other than the upfront cost, perhaps the most enduring objection we hear to the tenure is that it may have a … Continued

The one million missing homes?

by

The relationship between housing supply and demand is always going to be of interest to those (like us) who care about living standards and housing costs. The ONS household figures published last month have prompted us to think more about this topic, especially given the new data suggests fewer households will form over the next … Continued

Lifting the lid on the HRA cap

by

Budget 2018 may have been a bigger deal than most of us expected but it’s been underwhelming when it comes to housing, especially given the government claimed just weeks ago that ‘solving the housing crisis is the biggest domestic policy challenge of our generation’. That said, we do now have details about the lifting of … Continued

The most biddable of them all?

by

This piece originally appeared on Times Red Box. Today’s headlines tell us once again that net migration from the EU to the UK is down significantly since the Brexit referendum, with record levels of emigration of EU citizens and a large drop in the number of people coming from the continent looking for work. In … Continued

Unwrapping the agency worker pay penalty

by

Christmas is coming – and many of the presents we’re all busy buying are being picked and packed in warehouses, delivered by drivers, or sold to us in shops by staff who are not directly employed, but who work through an agency instead. So how has this part of the workforce fared over the course … Continued

Helping or hindering? The latest on Help to Buy

by

When Sajid Javid announced last month that the government would allocate a new tranche of money to the Help to Buy (HTB) programme he claimed that this would enable “people to make their dream of owning a home a reality”. But is this expensive policy really doing ‘people’ any favours? When HTB was introduced in … Continued

Looking for house and home

by

You can normally get a good feel for changing political priorities by tracking how often the parties refer to particular issues over time. Search for ‘house’ and ‘home’ in the manifestos of the two main parties and, as Figure 1 shows, in 2001 neither term got much of a look-in. Today, even when we strip … Continued

Housing
·
Political parties and elections

Home ownership for young families has halved in West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Outer London since the 1990s

by

The phrase ‘housing crisis’ is rarely off politicians’ lips these days as they increasingly recognise that the cost of a home – to buy and to rent – plays a key role in determining living standards. And quite right too as new Resolution Foundation analysis shows that the crisis is both acute and widely felt. … Continued

The delicate balance of ‘build to rent’

by

How times change. Twenty five year ago less than one in ten families rented their home from a private landlord; today that figure stands at close to one in five. Renting is no longer the tenure of just the footloose and fancy-free who prize the flexibility that it offers. The private rented sector (PRS) is … Continued

A tale of two cities

by

Housing affordability is often depicted as primarily a London problem but is this really the case? New analysis from the Resolution Foundation suggests that while the capital may be at the epicentre, the housing storm now rages far and wide. London itself is a tale of two cities. Home ownership rates in Inner London have … Continued

Loading
No more posts found