It was another Tory epiphany moment. Nearly 30 years after Margaret Thatcher's flagship social engineering policy - the sale of council properties - the party has tacitly admitted that local authority-run housing was probably not a bad idea after all.
Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps told The Observer that the Conservatives want to increase council involvement in low-cost housing. His statement comes as the number of public sector new-build continues to fall and waiting lists rise.
Yesterday, Labour said it too was committed to affordable housing, with councils "centre stage" of its policy, housing minister John Healey wrote in The Guardian.
Since the Thatcherite project to sell off council housing and absurdly prevent local authorities from using the proceeds to re-invest in stock, it has been left to social housing trusts to pick up the slack. Undoubtedly they have tried, but they have little protection from the whims of economic uncertainty.
In times of recession, forward-planning becomes as difficult as it is in the free market.
Yet, after 12 years on power, only recently has Labour eased the straitjacket on council home sales proceeds - just when there are few properties left to sell.
So the money for the new-build will have to come from somewhere. Council tax? That's capped and any construction would have to funded by cuts elsewhere. Central government? John Healey's Guardian article intimated there would be some shuffling of funds in Whitehall in order to help councils.
And there's the rub: it is not obvious where the money is to directly come from.
However, if one positive thing has come from this it is that a future Conservative government may be less inclined to bow to Thatcherism and more inclined to intervene in economic matters. After all, there is no alternative.
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