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Aileen Evans and Alison Inman are co-founders of SHOUT, the social housing campaign
We must stop history repeating itself – and social rented housing has to be part of the solution
Hearing the Conservative Party chair state this week that people faced with high fuel bills can “either cut consumption or get higher salaries” felt like history repeating itself, write Alison Inman and Aileen Evans
Well, they say that a week is a long time in politics, but it’s hard to remember what government policy was 24 hours ago, let alone last week. As we write this, it’s Conservative Party conference time, where the good folk of Birmingham seem to be playing host to a bunch of ferrets fighting in a sack.
We have had the Mini Budget, the U-turn, talk of a coup, Nadine Dorries calling for a general election. What we haven’t had is a decision on increases to state benefits, although it does appear that the triple-lock on pensions is safe for another year.
Suella Braverman has just announced that people choose to “top up their salaries with benefits”, while forgetting to mention that this is only necessary because of the low-wage, high-housing-costs economy that means 40% of people claiming Universal Credit are in work, but work so poorly paid that the state needs to subsidise their wages.
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Ten years ago, at a Work and Pensions Select Committee hearing into the impact of welfare reform on housing costs, a Conservative member of the committee responded to testimony from people unable to heat their homes by saying “well, can’t they get better jobs?”.
That was in 2012. Hearing Jake Berry, chair of the Conservative Party, comment recently that “people know when they get their bills, they can either cut consumption or get higher salaries or higher wages” it would appear that not much has changed.
We are old enough to remember when the UK had a system of social security, rather than welfare, and when food banks were something read about only in gritty American novels. It was only in 1984 that Carer’s Allowance began to be payable to married women, following a long battle spearheaded by Child Poverty Action Group and others. Before that, ‘caring’ was deemed to be just what married women did.
“There is a recruitment crisis in the care sector that is years in the making and that has only got worse with the impact of Brexit”
Although such discrimination on the grounds of gender seems unthinkable now, a recent government statement on caring saying that “it has never been the role of the government to pay people for the tasks they undertake voluntarily” does not feel a million miles away from views many of us would consign to history.
It seems like yesterday when we all stood outside and clapped for carers during the pandemic. The jobs website Indeed gives the average wages for those doing paid care work as £10.91 an hour. There is a recruitment crisis in the care sector that is years in the making and that has only got worse with the impact of Brexit. What an almighty mess we are in.
We are both proud supporters of Harry’s Pledge and Harry’s Pals and would urge you all to take a look at the work being done by Hayley Charlesworth to raise the profile of what paid and unpaid carers do. Please encourage your organisations to sign up to Harry’s Pledge and work towards meeting the four requirements.
We support the campaign to increase Carer’s Allowance from the derisory sum of £69.70 a week to at least the level of the Minimum Wage, and would advocate for caring responsibilities to be added to the list of protected characteristics under the Equality Act.
“A programme of supporting landlords to build 90,000 social rented homes a year and a housing minister that lasts longer than a few months would be a great start”
And part of the solution must be an increase in the number of social rent homes. It’s pleasing to hear that Michael Gove shared platforms at the conference fringe with Shelter and the National Housing Federation among others and forcefully advocating for this, but warm words alone won’t build the homes we need. A programme of supporting landlords to build 90,000 social rented homes a year and a housing minister that lasts longer than a few months would be a great start.
Social housing saves money – for individuals, families and the state. It has to be part of the solution.
Aileen Evans and Alison Inman are co-founders of SHOUT, the social housing campaign and are both writing in a personal capacity
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