On Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:17:39 +0000 Paul Redfern wrote:
> From: Paul Redfern <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:17:39 +0000
> Subject: Housing Benefit and Council Rents
> To: Critical Geography Forum <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: Economic Geography Forum <[log in to unmask]>
>
> According to yesterday's Sunday Telegraph:
>
> "Tony Blair is planning to abolish housing benefit...introduce council rents
> at market rates and choice in the allocation of homes as well as insist that
> all tenants pay towards the cost of their accommodation...
> ...tenants who have a job are likely to receive help with their housing
> costs through their wage packets as part of the Government's working
> families tax credit. All tenants will be expected to contribute towards
> their rent."
>
>
> What do list members think of these proposals?
>
>
What is given away by one end of the tax and benefit system is recouped through
the other. Within this logic the distance, economic, social and political, between
the have-nots and have lots can hardly be narrowed. Britain needs a seriously
redistributive system to get to grips with its inequalities. Tinkering with credits and
efficiency-oriented public sector reforms is hardly going to do the job. Introducing
market rents in the council housing sector is likely to hit the least well of in the
urban and metropolitan areas, in which the higher cost of living already has an
appreciable effect on social and spatial inequalities. It will also hardly contribute to
bettering the sometimes strained relations between councils and their tenant
constituencies as it opens up the possibility for rentseeking by councils among
their least economically strong constituencies.
All in all this is yet another surface reflection of the fundamental drive for fiscal
rectitude and consolidation, and macroeconomic 'stability' that is extremely well
rooted in the European policy debate as a whole. As such, it is hardly surprising.
Ulf Arvidsson
Sussex European Institute
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