IN 1979 over 40 per cent of the population lived in council and other social housing. Less than 10 per cent were living in private rented housing; owner-occupiers accounted for just over half of households in the country.

There was no housing crisis in 1979. Today less than 6 per cent of people live in council homes and we have a serious crisis that for many has become an emergency.  Lorraine Douglas, convenor of the Communist Party’s Housing Commission, explains.

“Around two million council homes have been sold since the introduction of the Right to Buy in 1981. Around 40 per cent of these homes are now in the hands of buy-to-let landlords, charging up to three times the council rent for the same properties.

“The Tories’ claim to be the party of home ownership when an entire generation has been all but locked out of owning their own home, with no prospect of getting an affordable place to rent from their local council or housing association, has been exposed for the canard it always was.”

The crisis affects even those who are comfortably housed. The destruction of council housing combined with the increasingly prohibitive costs of buying your own home has caused an explosion in the costs of renting.

Twenty years ago, the average rent accounted for 28.7 per cent of the average net income in England. Now it’s 45.5 per cent. London has seen the most drastic increase with an astonishing 74.8 per cent of the average net income now required to cover the average cost of renting; this compares to 41.1 per cent in 2000.

This is filtering money away from rest of the economy, it contributes to the build-up of dangerous levels of personal debt and is making it increasingly difficult for our young people to find a decent place to live.

Additionally, the impact on public spending is significant: housing benefit is 3 per cent of public spending and has doubled in the last 20 years, dwarfing expenditure on the police, on overseas aid and the budgets of many entire government departments. One in six households are now reliant on housing benefit, the majority of which ends up in the pockets of private landlords.

“The Right to Buy has finally been abolished in Wales and Scotland under devolved powers,” writes Douglas.

“England is continuing to lose up to 20,000 low-cost social rented homes a year under this reactionary legislation. It’s high time England followed its neighbours’ lead and consigned this fire-sale of one of our most important public assets to the dustbin of history.

“We need rent controls and proper regulation of the private rented sector. Local communities need to take control of housing development so it can meet their needs rather than lining the pockets of developers, landowners and wealthy foreign investors whose interests mean housebuilding has become a racket for profiteers rather than social good.”

Douglas argues that as the roots of the housing crisis are complex and interconnected, proposed solutions need to be comprehensive and integrated.

Solutions to the problem require a shift away from treating housing as an asset to recognising it as an essential social need — and that local government must regain proper control over the type and tenure of housing being developed.

The Communist Party has developed a comprehensive set of proposals that will help transform the housing market in Britain, according to Douglas. These include:

• Reforming housing finance to enable a mass council housing development programme, including the regeneration and replacement of run-down council estates, keeping rents at council levels.
• Stopping the sale of public land to private developers; utilising Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) on privately owned land where development is unreasonably delayed or to bring empty homes back into use and progressively tax the owners of vacant land and properties.
• Enhancing councils’ powers to restrict the growth of holiday lets and second home ownership in areas of high housing need.
• Implementing local rent controls, subject to a national cap, on the private rented sector, compulsory licencing for private landlords and a boost to funding for councils’ enforcement powers; grant security of tenure to private tenants for at least five years.
• Bringing former council homes back under the democratic control of local authorities.
• Reforming welfare benefits so that no-one is forced to choose between feeding themselves and their families and paying the rent.
• End homelessness and rough sleeping and restore funding to housing support services that help prevent homelessness.

Official statistics suggest that 325,000 new homes per year are required simply to meet demand caused by demographic change. This would not tackle the current backlog and yet this level of housebuilding has not been seen since 1970 when council-house building was at its height.

Apart from meeting need, social house building stimulates the economy and creates stable, predictable jobs for the construction industry and its significant supply chain. Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government guidance states that every £1m of new housing output supports 20 direct and 16 indirect jobs.

The construction industry as a whole provides employment directly and indirectly for around 10 per cent of the workforce. The initial costs will provide long-term savings.

As stated above, one in six households is now reliant on housing benefit expenditure that accounts for approximately 3 per cent of public spending, the majority of which goes to private landlords either directly or via local councils leasing private rented homes as temporary accommodation for homeless families.

Research by Capital Economics in 2015 concluded that wide-scale construction of new social rent housing is viable “economically and fiscally” due to the future savings on the government’s housing benefit bill. Capital Economics concluded that after 20 years, a programme would begin to create a surplus for the government.

Douglas concludes: “It’s clear the private sector has no solutions for Britain’s broken housing market. Only a programme of public-sector housebuilding stands a chance of ending this nightmare for Generation Rent.”

Stewart McGill is a local council candidate for the Communist Party in south-east London.

Join the panel chaired by Morning Star editor Ben Chacko to discuss the way out of Britain’s housing crisis at 7pm on March 17. Speakers include Steve Turner, Unite assistant general secretary, Owen Hatherley, housing expert and culture editor for Tribune, Jade Welburn from community union Acorn and Laura Dickinson from the Young Communist League. They’ll talk about the housing crisis from the point of view of renters and Lorraine Douglas will introduce the Communist Party’s Charter for Housing. Register at www.tinyurl.com/Homes4ThePeople.