A very British problem, or, how I learned to stop worrying and love renting
Norwich City Councillor Samir Jeraj responds to Alyson MacDonald’s The Case Against Landlords.
In the 2006 film Thank You For Smoking, the anti-hero lobbyist for the tobacco industry muses about his motivations “Everyone’s got a morgage to pay” and then concludes that “maybe the world would be a better place if people rented”. In almost any other country in Europe, private renting is better, cheaper and more widely available than in the UK. The problem is not necessarily landlords but the implicit requirement that in order to be a paid up member of society, you need to own your own home. Renting needs to be better, not lesser.
The Thatcherite dream of the property-owning democracy is a far older concept than we generally credit. It essentially goes back to the origins of the debate over democratic participation. During the 1647 Putney Debates, the New Model Army in revolutionary England debated the proposals it would put to parliament. The Debate boiled down to two visions of democracy,
Thomas Rainsborough argued that every (man) has a right to a voice in government:
“For really I think that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest hee; and therefore truly, Sr, I think itt clear, that every Man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own Consent to put himself under that Government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that he hath not had a voice to put Himself under.”
Countering this was the old conservative argument from Henry Ireton that you (men) have to own property to have rights:
“no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom… that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom.”
Subsequently, home ownership has always been part of a conservative vision of democratic society. This aspiration has, since the 1970s/80s been funded through expanded credit (debt) and fed the sprial of house prices which has left young people without secure housing. It also played its role in the present financial and banking crises.
There are massive problems in the private-rented sector in the UK. Anyone who has read the excellent ‘Diary of a tenant’ will be able to see in detail and at a personal level the problems faced by any tenant from insecure tenure, damp, and repairs not carried out, to not being allowed to have a cat or other pets. In my own experience as a City Councillor in Norwich, I have seen tenants living in terrible conditions but afraid of taking action for fear of losing their deposit and reference – many are resigned to living like this for a while until they can find something better. Shelter has been running a campaign against rogue landlords and urging local authorities to use their powers to clamp down on sub standard housing, but reforms need to be more wide-ranging.
In Europe, the proportion of private rented housing is as high as 45% (Germany), but generally hovers around 20%. So, if we are to become ‘Generation Rent’, what can we learn from Europe and what can we do about it?
The long list of demands should focus on improving security of tenure so that tenants can’t be turfed out with a months notice, rent price controls, a breakdown of what happens to your rent (how much goes back into investment), and a mediation between landlords and tenants. Most importantly of all, generation rent needs to organise – in Camden the Federation of Private Tenants has a long history of fighting for tenants and improving rights and conditions (it’s funding is now under threat due to cuts from Camden’s Labour-run Council) – we need a national organisation of private tenants to take up our struggle!
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Paul – I would disagree that the problems are predominantly with landlords who accept housing benefit. Whilst richer and more educated tenants are more likely to be aware and willing to use the rights that they do have, I haven’t seen many examples of this. Similarly, I didn’t get into the development of lettings agencies in the past 5-10 years, which was in part a result of buy to let. I would however say that the state is in part responsible for under provision of social housing.
John – an excellent point which I hadn’t thought of. I don’t know in detail how countries with high levels of renting deal with this. I suspect that, given the significantly lower rent, people would have higher savings/pensions. One problem in the UK for elderly people with ‘wealth’ in the form of property but no income is council tax, which doesn’t really take ability to pay into account. Moreover, inheritance tax is increasingly a problem for the current generation of elderly people in part due to inflation in house prices.
Jon B – I was waiting for someone to pick up on the question of social housing. I had thought of putting in a paragraph or two on this but thought it might unbalance the article. I am a big fan of Co-op Housing, Cohousing and even some of the smaller Housing Associations (not the big corporations) – this is something which is a bigger part of European and in particualr Scandanavian housing stock. I’ve also been an advocate of building council housing again, with a strong emphasis on tenant participation of course. (Interestingly, the 1945 government did consider nationalising the housing stock). Check out Radical Routes and the Confederation of Cooperative Housing – plus my colleague Jenny Jones did a report on co-op housing relatively recently.
Lynsey Hanley’s book on Council Housing is also an excellent read, although I disagree with some of her conclusions and think she’s too pessimistic about council housing. There is a lack of popular reading on the subject of housing despite it being one of the biggest dividers between social classes and one of the major public policy issues in the UK.
There is an important difference between private renting, and social renting, I think, which this article, and the one it is responding to misses.
Fully mutual housing coops for example could completely replace the private rented sector, and would be more democratic and accountable, with lower rents due to not supporting a private landlord’s lifestyle.
There is one, singular problem with teh above proposal:
How can a person committed to renting cover their rent when they reach retirement and have, due to increased cost of living and unreliability of private pensions, found themselve faced with the possibility of no, or practically no, state or private pension?
Owning property is a way of securing oneself against poverty in old age.
It seems the landlords who get the bad press are those catering for people who would otherwise expect to be in ‘social housing’.
This is not a generic problem with renting and landlords, but with the expectations of those who don’t work or earn very little.
The private rental sector is part of the key infrastructure of the country as young professionals can easily move as their careers and lives develop – they may ‘get on their bike’ to find a better job, but once they have the job they will be looking to rent somewhere nice and convenient.
It is social housing that locks many people into poverty – when there is no work nearby they are condemned by not being able to move.
Its a benefits trap, poverty trap and social housing trap that keeps many people poor. Plentiful private rental properties are part of the solution to this state created problem.