The “Building Communities” motion last autumn left us with a target of 380,000 new homes a year, despite opposition from ALDC and most of the Party hierarchy. The grassroots, especially the young, don’t trust their colleagues who have to work with government at all levels.
Targets like this are gestures that discredit our radical tradition. They are not policies and they are bound to fail unless a Party has policies that can deliver them. Noticeably none of the policies in the motion were opposed. Just the target.
The national housing target merely “feeds the beast” that is the cartel of national homebuilders and speculative landowners, in combination with lenders who between them kill our real economy. I began my working life 50 years ago as a chartered builder working for one of them. I wondered why housing site construction always made a loss until the regional manager took me aside at a training function and said: “Tony, we make all our money on land deals.” So began my inyerest in land economics.
“Investment” in a finite natural resource simply hands over wealth created by entrepreneurs and workers, to be locked up in bank balances as unearned gains. Legalised theft. It inflates the balance sheets of large companies that plunder and speculate at our expense. That wealth needs to be re-invested in things society needs, not in pandering to greed.
The Young Liberals who promoted the motion last autumn won’t like to see the subject coming up for review so soon (this autumn, unless FCC changes its plans) but I would personally rather see the Party enter the next General election with no national target than with one that is even more ridiculous than other parties. We would attract far more attention if we instead focused on a promise to deliver the policies that meet the needs of the country for decent homes that every household can afford to buy or rent and to live in, that also achieve everything possible to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint.
On the Homes & Planning Policy Working Group, almost every expert witness we have heard from agrees that it is the land market that lies at the heart of our dysfunctional housing market. This has to be one of the most important things that Government needs to fix. Whatever focus they might have on a particular area of housing or planning policy (e.g. tenancy law or home insulation), tackling the “Land Question” is most essential.
We have some excellent policies already in last autumn’s motion but if we cannot be honest with the public we don’t deserve to be treated better by them than they treat other parties – increasingly with disdain.
ALTER exists to explain why we robustly sing “The Land Song” still – over a century after Lloyd George legislated for Land Value Taxation (LVT). Much has changed in society, technology and housing tenure since then – but not in Liberal values and attention to rational evidence-based policy.
While presided over for 20 years until 2018 by eminent Lib Dem economists of the 20th century like Chris Huhne and Vince Cable, ALTER has helped develop fair and modern ways to achieve what our forefathers were close to achieving: a tax on the rental value of all land. Our Commercial Landowner Levy (CLL), passed as policy in 2018, would transfer property tax liability to owners, not occupiers. Almost every other advanced country does that.
Furthermore, ALTER would argue that land with planning permssion or assigned for housing in a Local Plan remains liable for CLL until homes are occupied and tax liability passes from the owner/developer. That would capture more land value per year than even quadrupling council tax.
According to a briefing for members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Land Value Capture, founded by Sir Vince in 2018, the uplift in land value that our planning system creates results in nearly £10bn/yr of ‘missed’ revenue for local government in England. That is £10bn that could pay for infrastructure and decent, well insulated homes. Only if we collected it in a way that seriously incentivises developers to build can we ever achieve a housing target.
We have the policies. The two most powerful ones need to go together: reform of the 1961 Land Compensation Act and LVT on non-residential land. These would only hit unproductive so-called ‘business’, so will lose us few votes.
This is what the debate on Homes & Planning must focus on, not targets.
* Cllr Dr Tony Vickers is the Membership Secretary, Lib Dems ALTER.
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29 Comments
My credits are slightly out of date. I’m not Chair of the Local Party since being re-elected to Council in 2019, where I am Shadow Portfolio holder for Planning, Transport, Housing & Countryside.
Also, merely having a target tells us nothing about where homes are needed most. Land values do, almost perfectly: the higher the land value, the greater the demand and the greater the investment, public and private, that has been created because that area is in demand.
Taxing this land value therefore creates a powerful incentive for people in those high demand areas to “budge up a bit” to allow natural, demand driven densification. In time this is so much better than speculative all-at-once gentrification, as the current population of an area are not suddenly priced out and displaced but the market can respond when densifying to demographic needs.
Or we can have targets that bureaucrats strive to meet the only way they know how it seems: by putting 5000 new homes an hour’s commute away from where they are really needed to be sustainable for the jobs and the social and commercial infrastructure the new occupants will still want to access) and still not be able to get mainstream developers to build those permissions out any quicker than they can sell them to maintain their land value capture profits!
Shelter has done extensive work on the urgent need for reform of the 1961 Land compensation act Grounds for Change
“Over the last 50 years we have created a system where almost every scrap of land for new communities and homes is maximised to deliver the highest possible return for the landowner. Almost all land value—which is created by infrastructure, communities and the granting of planning consent—flows to the landowner. But if we shared that value more evenly between communities and the landowner we could address our housing emergency and get back to doing development better.”
Not having a target makes us look like the nimby’s that too many local councillors actually are.
Nobody thinks that targets build houses. But they do tell people that we have an aspiration to build houses. That we have an aspiration to build safe and secure homes for everyone. That we have an aspiration to build communities.”
And if Tony and other councillors would like advice on how to win council seats, and even councils, without an anti housing message I’d be more than happy to help. We achieved the two biggest seat gains in local councils in the last four years in South Cambs and Chelmsford, where LibDem councils are now building what the wonderful leader of the South Cambs campaign in 2018, Aidan Van Der Weyer called a “f***ton of houses”
Maybe whilst the old guard who want to try again with a policy they didn’t get the answer they wanted to are at it, they can put forward a constitutional amendment?
Because our preamble quite explicitly, and radically, says we “oppose all forms of entrenched privilege” To properly reflect their views we should amend that to add “except that of those who already own their own home”
Jock Coats makes the very important point that homes need to be near jobs, to minimise commuting. Where I live in the London Borough of Harrow, Labour, who have controlled the council for all but a year of the last 24, have steadily been turning employment land into housing land as well as making central Harrow look like a mini-New York. Over that period we have lost the two largest employers in Harrow (Kodak and Marconi Defence Systems) as well as two RAF bases (Bentley Priory and Stanmore Park) and two areas of Government Offices in Stanmore, every single one converted to housing, even losing green space such as the Kodak Sports field. And now the Labour Mayor of London is pushing for tower blocks on the remaining Tube station car parks.
And let us call out densification for what it really means in urban areas: garden-grabbing. All those places where individually-owned houses have moderate to large gardens, which we know to be major havens for wildlife diversity, are replaced by blocks of flats surrounded by ‘green deserts’ of grass, cut to the smoothness of a cricket square apart from a few isolated bushes, with the needs of pollinating insects left unmet. What shall it profit a man if he gains a house but the bees become extinct.
Agreed with appreciation of the article and of ALTER
Tony – you could have made your points about the importance of land reform without the first four or five sentences of your article, which are largely irrelevant to the points you are making.
I would also urge you to remember that policy is in part about sending a message. And we SHOULD be sending a message that we stand for the rights of ALL young people (anyone under 40 or so!) to have a home of their own. Labour and the Tories won’t, so we should.
I don’t see why targets and policies should be mutually exclusive; surely a target can be a good way to judge the success or otherwise of those policies and a help in prioritising them.
As Mary indicates above, shying away from a headline figure of “380000” reinforces the impression that the party fears appearing enthusiastic about house-building and undermining a NIMBY message that goes down better in its target constituencies.
I agree that the land value market/model is utterly broken and needs fixing, but I’m not comfortable with the thinly-veiled criticism of Young Liberals here, and by extension, young people more broadly. The acute problem being faced by people under 40, including myself, is the sheer unaffordability of housing in large areas of the country. In order to redress that, ultimately either individual incomes/capital will need to increase, or the prices of houses will need to reduce. As someone priced out of the housing market on what by any measure would be regarded as ‘a decent, well-paying job’, it is galling to read criticism on these points from people able to get on the housing ladder when house prices were only 1-3x annual salaries (now they’re more like 8-10x).
If COVID taught us one thing it was that human beings need some peaceful individual space, some of the planning for new estates etc should seriously take this knowledge with its affect on mental health into that process, it is all well and good building more affordable homes but we should be aware of the long term affects of overcrowding without the ability to have places nearby to escape into! I am definitely not an expert on planning but I believe most building work is carried out to gain the maximum profit for the developer and on occasions the local council, who can get them to carry out improvements? in return for granting planning permission.
For some time I have written on the problems of accessible housing. Accessible homes, the few that get built can be in not accessible area’s.
Habinteg Housing are a wealth of knowledge, on how to move forward with housing that can provide for further needs as well as the already disabled population.
A downstairs toilet does not make an accessible property. There needs to be turning spaces in toilets and in living and sleeping area’s. Bathrooms that can be adapted or room to add a further bathroom area.
My greatest frustration, is the lack of understanding, that many able bodied people have and yet are involved in building homes.
Pain, is a big problem for many disabled people, in or out of a wheelchair.
Mary Regnier-Wilson & Stephen Robinson imply that I and my generation are NIMBYs, which I rather resent.
Conference policy motions should be about policy. It is up to the Campaigns people to devise slogans and I include targets (when stated on their own, with no evidence of polices to deliver them) as mere slogans. The evidence given to the working party doesn’t match the target agreed last autumn, although the policies agreed were good (as far as they went).
I said in my article that we should promise “to deliver the policies that meet the needs of the country for decent homes that every household can afford to buy or rent and to live in, that also achieve everything possible to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint”. That doesn’t seem like something a NIMBY would say!
ALTER has devised pretty detailed policy on planning, housing and – most important – tax reforms that will deliver. But FCC & FPC has failed to allow these to be debated. Until we can truthfully claim to be able to deliver any set number of new homes per year, I will not myself include a number in any material I put my name to for an election. But I have spent 25 years making this area of Lib Dem policy my top priority and I’m not about to stop.
ALTER has regularly offered to speak to YL gatherings – and we’ll do the same for any group of Lib Dems – and we have always found YLs understand full well the need for radical reforms such as we promote. However I admit we’ve not done that for a few years now. I certainly don’t mean to criticise YLs. ALTER is wholeheartedly on the same side as them in this.
Targets for new housing should be local, based on evidence and – if necessary – aggregated.
Laurence Cox: “And let us call out densification for what it really means in urban areas: garden-grabbing. All those places where individually-owned houses have moderate to large gardens, which we know to be major havens for wildlife diversity, are replaced by blocks of flats…”
I’m not sure about “garden-grabbing”, Laurence. It’s more about urban green space snaffling, which lacks onomatopoeia. One of my local councils went to residents who lived around an octagon of space, almost a green, suggesting that it should become residential space.
In the 1980s, no developer would suggest a backyard development accessible by a narrow road, because it was/is wrong mostly. Nowadays it is common which doesn’t change the fact that it is wrong mostly.
If you look at a city map across 150 to 30 years ago, you have to readjust. Green space originally became brown space and is now green space — until we’re told that city space is very important to developers — and councillors.
I live in one of the most gorgeously green areas of my city, public space where I can scream about stupidity or to sit beneath a tree with a book. Some people live in cities because they want to live amongst thousands of people; others live in cities because they can find ways to enjoy and cope.
Valuing land according to its inherent value is a principle that is not going away. We should make it one of our manifesto priorities. It would distinguish us from the other main Parties and allow our candidates to educate the electorate about something that shows our credentials concerning fairness, rights and economic credibility.
@Phil Beesley
You may not have had ‘garden grabbing’ in the 1980s where you live, but we certainly did where I live. Perhaps our developers were more rapacious than yours, but I can remember one of our members who found himself and his wife living in a detached house. It wasn’t built that way, but a developer bought the other half of his semi-detached house with its large back garden, made an offer for his and when he refused, knocked the other half down and redeveloped the site. That so incensed him that he became one of our councillors. Here it is on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4c-ean9sPE
I was really happy not that long ago at Young Liberals Conference in Edinburgh to speak on and vote for a motion enshrining in YL policy our support for housing targets, and the fact that YL will throw it’s weight behind retaining housing targets as party policy and fight back against the endemic NIMBYism that has engulfed the party establishment.
@Laurence Cox – Mini-New York sounds great! Credit where it’s due to Harrow Labour!
What a long winded way to say you don’t like the Young Liberals.
Young people work with all levels of government too, and clearly the majority of voters at conference saw their concerns.
On a more serious note – if you think that the 380,000 target is unachievable then it’s not the target that needs to change – it’s your attitude to the importance of the housing crisis.
Last year the average price of a house went up by more than the average salary. Under those circumstances how on earth can any young person really expect to be able to own a home in their lifetime?
To be fully honest – we need a larger conversation about building on the Greenbelt. If we allowed folk to build on greenbelt land that’s within a mile of transport hubs then we would be able to vastly outweigh the 380,000 target we set.
When hasn’t buying your first home been out of reach for many young people??
Barry Lofty
“When hasn’t buying your first home been out of reach for many young people??”
It depends on what you mean by “many”, of course, but buying your first home was much easier 35 years ago (when I was doing it) than now – 100% mortgages and house prices that were affordable to young professionals on starting salaries, and relatively low rents that meant actually saving money before you could buy was a feasible plan. If you don’t think it’s harder today, you’ve really not been paying attention!
@Barry Lofty
Maybe back in the mid 90’s when average house price was just below 3 times average salary? Now it’s well over 6 times average salary and in London 11 times.
Whilst mortgage payments have not increased dramatically, actually getting approved fro a mortgage and getting a deposit is out of reach for most – leaving young people paying rents to landlords from older generations.
There’s some good info at https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5568/housing/uk-house-price-affordability/ – or just talk (and by talk I mean really listen) to anyone you know under 30.
Well it was sure hard enough for my wife and I when we had a young family back in nineteen hundred and frozen to death!! but we managed it in our forties with help and savings, thank goodness!
And I am just saying it is never easy for some people of any generation, and I do listen to many under thirties and understand how difficult it is!!!
It was a Liberal Reform amendment, not a YL one. Though YL were brilliant in getting it passed.
@Jack Worrall
“To be fully honest – we need a larger conversation about building on the Greenbelt. If we allowed folk to build on greenbelt land that’s within a mile of transport hubs then we would be able to vastly outweigh the 380,000 target we set.”
You need to learn some history. That is exactly what happened in my Borough in the 1920s and 30s. The transport hubs came first: what are now the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines and then came the housing around them on what had been farmland until then. It was that sort of uncontrolled development which led to the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 that created the Green Belt to protect open land in the first place. You may like the idea of living in New York, where the only significant green space is Central Park, but you won’t find many Lib Dem members or voters who agree with you.
Well done Helen Dudden for actually mentioning the disabled! I am driven out of a LibDem/Independent held council area due to stupid and inconsiderate parking and access for the disabled to live, exercise or shop. So many narrow, tall, stair ridden new houses with tiny, narrow parking spaces are being built. How many blocks of flats have lifts? It should be illegal not to make doors wide enough, drives and paths and rooms big enough for wheelchairs and attendant. With the stroke of a pen houses could be made to fasce south to get the sun, borrowed lights to bring light and warmth in free. I was told by two councillors equality of opportunity meant the disabled have to jump through the same hoops as everybody else, and as a poor and disabled person I had no right to stand for council. I resigned because I was refused or given the run around or conspired against to improve things to allow my disabled self to be given a vote or the correct papers for council.
Laurence Cox: “You may not have had ‘garden grabbing’ in the 1980s where you live, but we certainly did where I live.”
Perhaps you didn’t read my comment fully, Laurence.
Laurence Cox: “You need to learn some history. That is exactly what happened in my Borough in the 1920s and 30s.”
Or likewise, Laurence. There are fifteen Green Belts in the UK, operational for 50 years or more and covering more than 10% of UK land area.
Effectively we have increased the land price in places where people want to live. We have increased the price of work place developments, pushing them away from where people live, increasing personal transport costs and environmental impact.
At the same time, we have permitted rich people to redevelop estates while poorer people live in cramped homes. We have created this idea of the Green Belt being an English idyll although it was meant as a barrier to ribbon development, not as an absolute barrier.
Why is it assumed that people in cities don’t like green spaces or the brown spaces which become wild?
@Phil Beesley
The proportion of Green Belt land is over 10% in ENGLAND not in the UK. When you take into account the vast area of rural Scotland, that 12.4% in England will be below 10% in the UK as a whole. And if you are arguing for building on the Green Belt, then why not in National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and Sites of Special Scientific Interest, which, together with the Green Belt, cover 37% of England.
The answer to the problem of high housing prices, which is almost entirely confined to London and the South-East is more jobs in the Midlands and the North of England, not concreting over London’s Green Belt, which would give a mere 34,790 hectares of building land.