Can
Starmer repeat the Wheatley legacy?
This month marks the centenary of
one of the most important pieces of legislation in housing history writes Jules
Birch in the housing magazine Inside Housing.His article goes on:
The Housing (Financial Provisions)
Act 1924 – better known as the Wheatley Act – was introduced by the UK’s
first-ever Labour government, a minority administration headed by Ramsay
MacDonald that only lasted for nine months.
A century later, with Sir Keir
Starmer only the fourth Labour prime minister to win an overall majority, are
there lessons to be learned?
The legislation was the
brainchild of John Wheatley (pictured) the health minister and a veteran of Red
Clydeside, a series of disputes in Glasgow between workers and the government
that started in 1915. He had played a leading role in the war-time rent strikes
in the city that led to the introduction of rent controls
He built on the legacy of the Addison
Act of 1919 (named after Christopher Addison, the Liberal health minister) that
established the principles of council housing, but which was derailed by
soaring building costs and abruptly scrapped two years later.
That was succeeded by the
Conservative (Neville) Chamberlain Act of 1923 that reserved most subsidy for
private housebuilding and only funded council housing where the private sector
could not meet identified need.
The Wheatley Act was the major
achievement of that first Labour government, but it was born out of pragmatic
agreement with building employers and unions, rather than ideology. A long-term
council housebuilding programme backed by more generous subsidies would
guarantee long-term work for builders, as well as provide homes for skilled
workers.
The act set a subsidy of £9 a
year per house, with more in rural areas. This was 50% more generous than the
Chamberlain Act, but not the open-ended subsidy of the Addison Act, and the
contribution from the rates was capped at £4.50 per house.
“The Wheatley Act was the major
achievement of that first Labour government, but it was born out of pragmatic
agreement with building employers and unions, rather than ideology”
Mr Wheatley himself described his
legislation as “anything but socialistic” and said it retained Mr Chamberlain’s
subsidy of private housing for sale on the grounds that it was producing homes.
But he also argued that it was
“private enterprise that is killing private enterprise”, as suppliers put up
their prices to achieve higher profits in a process that “chokes off the little
builder who relies on cheap production”.
He went on: “By promoting a
larger market for houses, I am creating a field for private enterprise that it
could not possibly have in anything but these proposals. It required Labour
proposals, socialist proposals if you like, in order that private enterprise
could get going again.”
The Labour government did not
last long in that first term and the act never met Mr Wheatley’s original
target of 2.5 million new homes over 15 years. However, it still produced more
than half a million council homes – half of those completed between the wars –
by the time it was cancelled in 1933.
By comparison, the Addison Act
produced 170,000, and the slum clearances of the 1930s led to 265,000 homes of
lower quality.
The Wheatley Act laid the
foundations for the inter-war boom in housebuilding and set the standard model
for housing subsidy for the next 40 years. Mr Wheatley himself is remembered in
the name of Scotland’s biggest housing association.
Against that, subsidies and space
standards were less generous than under the Addison Act and rents were only
affordable by the better paid in regular work, rather than the poorest tenants
living in the worst housing.
However, in an echo of the case
now sometimes made for building expensive homes for sale, the argument was that
as tenants would vacate their current private rented homes, that would filter
down to others as increased supply reduced rents overall.
“It’s easy to forget what’s been
lost in the past 45 years, not just in terms of the Right to Buy, but also the
clarity of the idea of council housing as a way of meeting the housing needs of
millions of families failed by the market”
So what lessons can be drawn from
what happened a century ago?
Circumstances are obviously very
different: for all the multiple housing crises we face now, housing conditions
were much worse for far more people 100 years ago.
But so, too, was the imperative
for political action in the wake of World War I, the threat of revolution and
the unfulfilled promise of ‘homes fit for heroes’.
It’s significant that the ideas
behind council housing – well-designed homes based on central government
subsidy and a contribution from the rates developed and managed by local
authorities – were able to survive in a period dominated by
Conservative-led governments and marked by two rounds of severe cuts in public
spending.
A determined minister like Mr
Wheatley could make a difference even in a short-lived Labour government
without a majority.
It’s easy to forget what’s been
lost in the past 45 years, not just in terms of the Right to Buy, but also the
clarity of the idea of council housing as a way of meeting the housing needs of
millions of families failed by the market.
A century later we have another
Labour government, this time with the second-biggest majority in the party’s
history.
Will it remain wedded to
market-led solutions, or will the party take inspiration from what Mr Wheatley
achieved 100 years ago?
Community
Voice Carlisle is published by Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`
Federation. For information about the federation, ring 01228 522277.
