Remember Cllr. Dan Ledger’s article on the problems of trying to increase the affordable and social housing stock given that every time a tenant  exercises their “Right to Buy” the council is prohibited from reinvesting all of the receipts to replace the loss. In fact the Tories restricted the reinvestment rules again in 2021. He pointed out that 70 RTB requests to EDDC were made in 2022. – Owl

Vicky Spratt inews.co.uk

A significant majority of Conservative voters think more social housing should be built in the UK, according to exclusive YouGov polling carried out for i.

Of 2,112 adults surveyed across Britain, a total of 74 per cent of Brits agreed that more social housing was needed. 15 per cent said that they did not think more social housing was needed and 11 per cent said they did not know.

Some 71 per cent of people who voted Conservative in the 2019 general election said they agreed that there needed to be more social housing, compared to 82 per cent of people who voted Labour in the same election.

An overwhelming majority of Brits – 82 per cent – also agreed that it was “difficult” for young people in the UK to access adequate housing. Around 7 per cent said they thought it was “easy” and 10 per cent said they did not know.

Of those who voted Conservative in the 2019 general election, the overwhelming majority – 80 per cent – thought it was difficult for young people to access adequate housing. This compared to 88 per cent who voted Labour.

The survey was conducted online between April 3 and 4 2023 and the results were weighted by factors such as age, gender, region, social class, political attention, past vote in the 2019 election, past vote in the 2016 EU referendum, and education level to give a representative sample of all adults over the age of 18 in Britain.

Britain currently faces a severe social housing shortage.

Last year the House of Lords Built Environment Committee concluded that there was a “serious shortage” of social housing and argued that many renters who would once have lived in secure and affordable social homes were now living in “expensive private rented accommodation” with their housing costs subsidised by housing benefit.

The housing benefit bill is now £23.4bn a year, more than the total spend for most government departments.

Exclusive YouGov polling for i has also revealed that most renters have experienced a sharp rent increase in the past year because of their landlord putting up their rent.

However, the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) which is how housing benefit is calculated remains frozen at 2019/20 levels, leaving low-income renters with a shortfall between the state support available to them and the real cost of rent.

The New Economics Foundation – a left-leaning think-tank which promotes social, economic and environmental justice – has done some research and found that the Government is set to spend five times more (£58.2bn) on paying private landlords’ rent via housing benefits than on its entire affordable housebuilding programme (£11.5bn for the Affordable Homes Programme) over the next four years.

Speaking about i’s polling Matt Downie, chief executive at the homelessness charity Crisis, said: “This poll highlights how people up and down the country understand the crucial need to address the chronic lack of social housing. The demand for social housing has outstripped supply for years and we are still yet to see any real commitment from the UK Government on social house building.

“With the increasing cost of living pressures and rents at their highest rate in over 16 years, the need for action is desperate. Until we build the genuinely affordable homes we need, we will continue to see people trapped without a home, and hundreds of thousands more on the brink of homelessness.”

According to the homelessness charity Shelter there are now 1.4 million fewer households living in social housing than there were in 1980.

There is also currently a social housing waiting list of over a million households across England, meaning that a growing number of homeless families with children have been placed in inappropriate temporary accommodation in recent years. This includes converted office blocks which i exposed in an investigation earlier this year and planning experts argue are putting residents’ health at risk.

A significant majority of Brits – 78 per cent – also said that access to adequate housing should be a human right.

11% said access to adequate housing should not be a human right and 11% said they did not know.

In response to these figures, the Labour MP Lisa Nandy, Shadow Levelling Up & Housing Secretary, told i: “Safe and secure housing is a fundamental human right, but the Tories have turned housing into a racket. A decade of drift and decay has left us with a chronic lack of social housing and over a million families languishing on waiting lists.

“That’s why the next Labour government will build more affordable and social homes, restore social housing to the second largest form of tenure, and raise standards. Everyone deserves a warm, safe place to call home and reform of our broken housing system to deliver that is long overdue.”

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) spokesperson said:

“We are committed to building more social homes and are investing £11.5bn through our Affordable Homes Programme to deliver tens of thousands of homes for rent and sale right across the country.

“We’ve also taken steps to increase the amount of money councils can keep when they sell social homes. Over £4.1 billion of Right to Buy sales has been reinvested in new affordable housing by councils since 2012.”

Dartmoor National Park Authority is increasing its parking charges for the first time in five years. From May 1 parking charges will increase at Haytor, Postbridge, Princetown, Meldon Reservoir and Lydford car parks.

Guy Henderson www.devonlive.com

The new fees will be £3 for up to three hours and £5 if staying for more than three hours. Fees for minibus and coaches will be £10 all day. Blue Badge holders will pay £3 all day. All the car parks remain free for motorcycles.

Charges for Haytor, Postbridge, Princetown and Meldon run from 10am to 6pm from Monday to Sunday. Charges for Lydford run from 10am to 6pm from Monday to Saturday and from 1pm to 6pm on Sunday.

A spokesman for the authority said: “The reality of continued financial challenges means the authority has had to make a series of difficult decisions lately, including a review of parking fees.

“People who pay to stay in the car parks owned by the authority are keeping Dartmoor a special place. Money raised is reinvested back in important services such as maintaining car park surfaces, looking after toilets, improving accessibility and supporting conservation work.”

The authority has also invested funds in installing electric vehicle charging points with one already at Haytor and others planned for Postbridge and Princetown.

Director of Conservation and Communities Richard Drysdale added: “We have done our best to keep the increases as modest as possible and visitors will still benefit from free parking before 10am or after 6pm. We think the increase is still good value for a day out on Dartmoor – one of the country’s most important landscapes and among the first to be designated as a National Park in 1951.

“Fees are vital for us in maintaining our car parks and visitor services and continuing our conservation work to help keep Dartmoor special for everyone to enjoy.” Signs letting people know about the increases have been put up in car parks.

An Exmouth stroke survivors’ club has thanked its local councillors for their support.

Rob Kershaw, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

East Devon District Council’s LED (Leisure East Devon) monitoring forum  heard from the club’s chair, Steve Beer on Tuesday [11 April]. He told them of the troubles people face after being discharged from hospital, with some stroke survivors waiting the best part of two years to be seen by a specialist.

He called on the council to do as much as it can to help those recovering from strokes, saying 500 people in Exmouth have left hospital having suffered stroke symptoms this year.

The club’s near 50 members are not fighting their battle alone. The district council’s leisure partner, LED, has offered the club a slot at Exmouth swimming pool. It has also helped provide equipment such as steppers to survivors.

Mr Beer urged more council members to attend the club’s meetings and thanked them for their support.Independent Cllr Nick Hookway joined Mr Beer in encouraging more backing for the club. “I think we ought to try to do as much as we can; I do support that call,” he added. “We are doing something at a perhaps small level. Anything we can do and anything LED can do more to help these people should be encouraged.”

People who convert homes into short-term holiday lets would require planning permission in tourist hotspots in England under government plans.

Are there local elections campaigns underway? – Owl

Nadeem Badshah www.theguardian.com 

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has said it will consult on the change as well as whether to give owners the flexibility to let out their home for a maximum number of nights a year without the need for the permission.

The government said it would also hold a consultation on another proposal for a registration scheme for short-term holiday lets.

Airbnb welcomed the government taking forward its plans for the register, but said it wanted to ensure that any changes to the planning system “strike a balance between protecting housing and supporting everyday families who let their space to help afford their home and keep pace with rising living costs”.

The communities secretary, Michael Gove, said: “Tourism brings many benefits to our economy, but in too many communities we have seen local people pushed out of cherished towns, cities and villages by huge numbers of short-term lets.

“I’m determined that we ensure that more people have access to local homes at affordable prices, and that we prioritise families desperate to rent or buy a home of their own close to where they work.”

The government said local authorities could choose not to use the planning controls.

It said the register is being introduced through the levelling up and regeneration bill currently going through parliament, while the planning changes, subject to the outcome of the consultation, would be introduced through secondary legislation later in the year.

Theo Lomas, head of public policy and government relations for northern Europe at Airbnb, said the vast majority of UK hosts share one home and almost four in 10 say the earnings help them afford the rising cost of living.

Lomas added: “Airbnb has long called for a national register for short-term lets and we welcome the government taking this forward. We know that registers are clear and simple for everyday hosts to follow while giving authorities the information they need to regulate effectively.

“We want to work with the government to ensure that any planning interventions are carefully considered, evidence-based, and strike a balance between protecting housing and supporting everyday families who let their space to help afford their home and keep pace with rising living costs.”

The plans for a register follow a call for evidence on the issue for a consultation to be carried out by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, said: “This new world of ultra-flexible short term lets gives tourists more choice than ever before, but it should not come at the expense of local people being able to own their own home and stay local.

“The government wants to help areas get the balance right, and today we have an incomplete picture of the size and spread of our short-term lets market.

“This consultation on a national registration scheme will give us the data we need to assess the position and enable us to address the concerns communities face.”

Matt Hancock is among three MPs who have been placed under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog. In a move that threatens to reignite allegations of sleaze in the Conservative party, a series of inquiries were launched by the commissioner, Daniel Greenberg.

Aubrey Allegretti www.theguardian.com 

The former health secretary is being looked into over allegations that he broke the MPs’ code of conduct by “lobbying the commissioner in a manner calculated or intended to influence his consideration” of whether a separate breach had been committed. It is a new offence that was added to the latest version of the code, endorsed by MPs in December 2022.

Meanwhile, the Blackpool South MP, Scott Benton, is being investigated over the use of his parliamentary email. It comes a week after Benton was caught offering to lobby ministers and obtain early access to a sensitive government report for up to £4,000 a month.

Henry Smith, a backbench Tory MP for 13 years, is also being investigated for an alleged breach of the rules on using taxpayer-funded stationery.

A spokesperson for Hancock denied any wrongdoing and claimed he was “surprised” by the move. They said: “Far from lobbying the commissioner, Matt wrote to Greenberg in good faith to offer some additional evidence that he thought was not only pertinent but helpful for an inquiry the parliamentary commissioner for standards is currently conducting.

“It’s clearly a misunderstanding and Matt looks forward to fully engaging with the commissioner to clear this up.”

The letter sent by Hancock contained evidence that he was said to have been uniquely placed to give. There were only two other existing investigations by the standards commissioner, one of which was into whether the former health minister Steve Brine broke lobbying rules. That was triggered when texts from Brine to Hancock and other cabinet ministers were released as part of a leaked cache of messages sent and received by the then health secretary during the Covid pandemic.

Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, said the “constant drip-drip of Conservative sleaze” had “become a deluge”.

She claimed that Rishi Sunak’s promise to lead a government of professionalism, integrity and accountability at all levels had “been swamped by scandal after scandal” and added: “The British people will rightly look at the Conservatives and wonder why there is always one rule for them, and another for everyone else.”

Hancock was stripped of the Conservative whip in autumn 2022 after appearing on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! while parliament was still sitting. Afterwards, he claimed he had been assured by the chief whip that he would be allowed to formally rejoin the Tory parliamentary party again “in due course”, but he still sits as an independent and has said he will stand down at the next general election.

The MP for West Suffolk was found by the previous standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, to have broken the rules by failing to declare a stake in a family company that won an NHS contract. She allowed him to avoid a sanction – as the breach was found to have fallen “at the less serious end of the spectrum” – and instead have the interest added to the official record “in bold italics”.

He also committed a “technical” breach of the ministerial code over the handling of the same matter, according to the then prime minister’s ethics adviser, but again faced no penalty.

Benton had the whip suspended last week after referring himself to the standards commissioner. He had been caught out by undercover reporters from the Times who were posing as representatives of a fake investment fund, and laughed when revealing how MPs could get away with not declaring hospitality.

When video evidence emerged, he said he had ceased contact with the fictitious company after becoming “concerned that what was being asked of me was not within parliamentary rules”.

Rishi Sunak has staked his premiership largely on his ability to fix Britain’s economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made clear this will be a tough job.

Has stagflation returned? – Owl

Hugo Gye inews.co.uk

When delivering his Budget last month, Jeremy Hunt boasted that the UK was on course to avoid recession. But the IMF’s forecast that GDP will shrink by 0.3 per cent puts that claim in doubt, and confirms that Britain is struggling worse than peer countries.

It is a sharp corrective to recent suggestions that the economy is perking up: even without a technical recession, usually defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, there is no realistic prospect of significant growth this year.

Even more concerning, perhaps, is the IMF’s warning that inflation could prove more persistent than hoped – leading in turn to interest rates that are higher for longer.

Changes in GDP take time to feed through to people’s everyday lives; inflation and interest rates have an instant impact. A second consecutive year of falling living standards would be felt by almost everyone in the UK and cement the impression that the Conservatives are no longer in control of the economy.

When Mr Sunak promised to halve inflation this year, he was mocked for picking a target that appeared trivially easy, given the likelihood that price increases would slow down of their accord. Government insiders say the IMF’s warnings show that in fact nothing can be taken for granted – and insist they need to double down on their tight fiscal plans to bring inflation down to a reasonable level.

To some extent having the IMF sound the alarm is a short-term help for Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt, strengthening the arguments they are already making and quieting Conservative MPs who want a return to the Trussite agenda of tax cuts.

But for any government, let alone one run by a man whose chief claim to fame was protecting the economy during the pandemic, slumping GDP and high inflation are a toxic cocktail. The IMF’s assessment that much of this is driven by factors outside ministers’ control only makes matters worse by limiting the menu of possible responses. The Prime Minister and Chancellor have work still to do.