Wednesday 20th September 2017

[Willow904]

The insufficient incentive to build is clearly reflected in the extremely low volume of builds being completed. House prices are a red herring because they are being artificially propped up.

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/cities ... vation-lab" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That is very much a US perspective@ it isn't the UK problem. Places like Pittsburgh and Scranton have space into which they can expand. London and elsewhere where the demand is doesn't and don't. So an LVT really isn't going to solve our UK problem. We have plenty of space in the UK: just none in the areas people

(a) wish to live

and

(b) is capable of being built on.

You can help with (a) through infrastructure and (B) with deregulation, but an LVT will do nothing. An LVT is useful where, as in much of the US, (a) and (b) aren't the problem.

The idea that there are developers hoarding land is just a lie (one Labour under Miliband used to tell quite often as it spoke to the base: "Evil Capirtalists"). Developers need a bank of land to keep production stable: they can't just buy land as one job ends. Developers land banks just haven't grown.

In the UK there would be fortunes to be made if undevelpped land around London and elsewhere could be built on. Indeed, what is actually needed is a tax to capture that uplift as we deregulate, rather than just handing it over to the lucky landowners.

An LVT is a good thing: but it isn't a housing problem solution at all.

It is if you use the revenues from LVT to build houses

Besides, there is land available in London. I think you are missing the big picture when you say "developers" aren't hoarding land. Developers aren't necessarily the problem:

A 2012 study for the Greater London Authority, by consultants Molior, found that 45% of sites in London with planning permission for new homes were owned by a company which did not build homes. The list includes “developers who do not build”, along with owner-occupiers, historic landowners, government, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, universities, churches – anyone looking to use land for short-term trading, tax sheltering purposes or simply as a long-term investment.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017 ... nd-banking" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I mean, I might be missing the point here, but aren't these exactly the kind of people whose behaviour an LVT could nudge into a more productive outlook? At the moment there is a fortune to be made by getting planning permission, which hands all the profit to the landowner and leaves very little scope for add on value by the developer. LVT actually helps genuine developers to....well, develop!

[HindleA]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bi ... m-41330879" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Birmingham bin strike halted after court ruling

Birmingham's bin strike has been suspended after the High Court granted an interim injunction against the council's bid to make workers redundant.
A trial will take place to determine if the council acted unlawfully in issuing redundancy notices.

[HindleA]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... -in-greece" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dubs scheme refugee children left on hold for a year in Greece
Group of up to 60 unaccompanied children expecting to come to UK have heard nothing about their applications

[SpinningHugo]

It is if you use the revenues from LVT to build houses

Besides, there is land available in London. I think you are missing the big picture when you say "developers" aren't hoarding land. Developers aren't necessarily the problem:

A 2012 study for the Greater London Authority, by consultants Molior, found that 45% of sites in London with planning permission for new homes were owned by a company which did not build homes. The list includes “developers who do not build”, along with owner-occupiers, historic landowners, government, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, universities, churches – anyone looking to use land for short-term trading, tax sheltering purposes or simply as a long-term investment.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017 ... nd-banking" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I mean, I might be missing the point here, but aren't these exactly the kind of people whose behaviour an LVT could nudge into a more productive outlook? At the moment there is a fortune to be made by getting planning permission, which hands all the profit to the landowner and leaves very little scope for add on value by the developer. LVT actually helps genuine developers to....well, develop!

There are enormous, and I mean enormous, incentives to build and develop in London already. It just isn't the issue. London isn't Scranton.

I'm all in favour of an LVT incentivising a more rational land use. A jolly good idea.

Of course Labour's actual policy was not to introduce one but to have a review. Feeble stuff, as was and is all Labour's housing policy.

Whether Healey or the leadership are to blame is a difficult issue, much as with Starmer and Labour's just-slightly-more-Remain-y-than-the-Tories Brexit policy.

[Willow904]

It is if you use the revenues from LVT to build houses

Besides, there is land available in London. I think you are missing the big picture when you say "developers" aren't hoarding land. Developers aren't necessarily the problem:

A 2012 study for the Greater London Authority, by consultants Molior, found that 45% of sites in London with planning permission for new homes were owned by a company which did not build homes. The list includes “developers who do not build”, along with owner-occupiers, historic landowners, government, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, universities, churches – anyone looking to use land for short-term trading, tax sheltering purposes or simply as a long-term investment.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017 ... nd-banking" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I mean, I might be missing the point here, but aren't these exactly the kind of people whose behaviour an LVT could nudge into a more productive outlook? At the moment there is a fortune to be made by getting planning permission, which hands all the profit to the landowner and leaves very little scope for add on value by the developer. LVT actually helps genuine developers to....well, develop!

There are enormous, and I mean enormous, incentives to build and develop in London already. It just isn't the issue. London isn't Scranton.

I'm all in favour of an LVT incentivising a more rational land use. A jolly good idea.

Of course Labour's actual policy was not to introduce one but to have a review. Feeble stuff, as was and is all Labour's housing policy.

Whether Healey or the leadership are to blame is a difficult issue, much as with Starmer and Labour's just-slightly-more-Remain-y-than-the-Tories Brexit policy.

I don't think you really understand LVT or you would have understood my point about how LVT transfers some of the profit potential from the landowners to the property developers. The only enormous incentives to build in London currently is on publicly owned land where the owner, the council, is willing to pass the profit potential to the developer rather than keep it for themselves - at the expense of taxpayers and, more significantly, at the expense of social housing provision. This isn't the most helpful situation in terms of housing people. We need to build houses on land not currently used for housing and we need developers to be rewarded for doing so, not landowners being rewarded whether they build the actual houses or not.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

I don't think you really understand LVT or you would have understood my point about how LVT transfers some of the profit potential from the landowners to the property developers. The only enormous incentives to build in London currently is on publicly owned land where the owner, the council, is willing to pass the profit potential to the developer rather than keep it for themselves - at the expense of taxpayers and, more significantly, at the expense of social housing provision. This isn't the most helpful situation in terms of housing people. We need to build houses on land not currently used for housing and we need developers to be rewarded for doing so, not landowners being rewarded whether they build the actual houses or not.

Yes because the land only realises its value as an asset if it has a building on it. You've explained this very well. Thank you.

[AnatolyKasparov]

The result of the Labour members ballot in Lewisham BC for their candidate in next year's Mayoral election (the - Labour - incumbent is standing down) has been announced.

Interestingly, especially in view of today's discussions, the Momentum backed candidate did not win - they came a good second out of 5, but were in the end clearly beaten by a "moderate". However, and this is extremely important, said person is popular across the party and regards the left as colleagues rather than enemies.

[citizenJA]

The idea that Corbynism has won seems to me to hugely overstate the situation.

IMHO, what Corbyn has achieved is not some kind of "lurch" to the left. Rather he has enabled the party to regain control of itself from the Westminster & City based establishment, from what would have been called until very recently the "upper class".

Hugo doesn't rate Rayner, yet she's a future leader the establishment truly fear. Why? Not because she's a left winger. She really isn't is she? Because she's working class.

(cJA bold)

I can't agree or disagree with the part about Hugo not accepting Rayner as a Labour leader - I don't know Hugo
You're absolutely right about non-acceptance of Rayner as Labour leader based upon classism
Others I do know are probably not even consciously aware of their class assumptions and prejudices - I'm not referring to anyone here

[citizenJA]

Good-afternoon, everyone

[citizenJA]

---
The snap GE has dissipated a lot of tensions within the party.... Those worried more by Corbyn's appeal than his policies were reassured, while those who aren't happy with some of his politics or doubt his ability as a potential PM have got a Corbyn election out of the way much earlier than expected with little likelihood of him continuing to the next one in 2022.

(cJA edit)

Beautifully written, I'm unaware of anyone having so precisely articulated what happened in the 2017 GE for Labour and Corbyn

[citizenJA]

The result of the Labour members ballot in Lewisham BC for their candidate in next year's Mayoral election (the - Labour - incumbent is standing down) has been announced.

Interestingly, especially in view of today's discussions, the Momentum backed candidate did not win - they came a good second out of 5, but were in the end clearly beaten by a "moderate". However, and this is extremely important, said person is popular across the party and regards the left as colleagues rather than enemies.

(cJA bold)
Yes, it's very important, beautiful

[citizenJA]

Some people think a land tax, as mentioned as a possibility in the 2017 Labour manifesto, is necessary to resolve the housing crisis. Including the Greens, I believe.

This would be an excellent and truly radical move. And exactly the kind of development the establishment fear.

It's not even that radical, really, LVT has been a part of some US tax systems over many decades as well as more recent experiments in other parts of the world. It's not as if it would be an untried gamble or anything. There's plenty of real world information on which to base practical, workable proposals.

It is, however, very much not in the interests of the asset rich who would strenuously oppose it, not least through the pages of the British press. Probably best to hide it in the manifesto small print and hit them with it before they know what's happening once elected!

Labour Land Campaign & land value tax (LVT)
http://www.labourland.org/faqs/

[citizenJA]

...it is important for all taxes to be considered for their worth and we see an annual [land value tax] LVT being introduced as part of a wider tax reform reducing or abolishing taxes that hinder production and create disincentives to creating wealth. For example, by introducing an annual LVT on all land, property speculation and land hoarding will become unprofitable.

[RogerOThornhill]

I see that Brendan O'Neill is doing his valiant best to defend Boris and blame Remainers for obsessing over the £350m a week.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/t ... -delusion/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So what was the very first item on the Boris 10 point plan?



Oh dear...

[citizenJA]

“You lose your life the moment you start thinking about how to save a few bucks to stop something from crashing or burning or falling apart.
The only thing that matters is the safety of your family, and your children, and yourself. The rest of the stuff, forget it.”

- Kenneth Mapp
Governor, US Virgin Islands

[SpinningHugo]

It is if you use the revenues from LVT to build houses

Besides, there is land available in London. I think you are missing the big picture when you say "developers" aren't hoarding land. Developers aren't necessarily the problem:

A 2012 study for the Greater London Authority, by consultants Molior, found that 45% of sites in London with planning permission for new homes were owned by a company which did not build homes. The list includes “developers who do not build”, along with owner-occupiers, historic landowners, government, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, universities, churches – anyone looking to use land for short-term trading, tax sheltering purposes or simply as a long-term investment.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017 ... nd-banking" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I mean, I might be missing the point here, but aren't these exactly the kind of people whose behaviour an LVT could nudge into a more productive outlook? At the moment there is a fortune to be made by getting planning permission, which hands all the profit to the landowner and leaves very little scope for add on value by the developer. LVT actually helps genuine developers to....well, develop!

There are enormous, and I mean enormous, incentives to build and develop in London already. It just isn't the issue. London isn't Scranton.

I'm all in favour of an LVT incentivising a more rational land use. A jolly good idea.

Of course Labour's actual policy was not to introduce one but to have a review. Feeble stuff, as was and is all Labour's housing policy.

Whether Healey or the leadership are to blame is a difficult issue, much as with Starmer and Labour's just-slightly-more-Remain-y-than-the-Tories Brexit policy.[/quote]

I don't think you really understand LVT or you would have understood my point about how LVT transfers some of the profit potential from the landowners to the property developers. The only enormous incentives to build in London currently is on publicly owned land where the owner, the council, is willing to pass the profit potential to the developer rather than keep it for themselves - at the expense of taxpayers and, more significantly, at the expense of social housing provision. This isn't the most helpful situation in terms of housing people. We need to build houses on land not currently used for housing and we need developers to be rewarded for doing so, not landowners being rewarded whether they build the actual houses or not.[/quote]


Those developers trying to build on the petrol forecoutt near me must be irrational then.

Nor the developers who just knocked down a car show room (with flats above) to build a still larger block of flats above.

The idea that the only land on which there is any incentive to build/develop is publicly owned is demonstrable claptrap.

No incentive to put up a block of flats with a rental income value of several million, over the petrol station with returns of a fraction of that?

I am not sure it is me who has a poor grasp of how markets work.

Again, an LVT is a good idea. But the idea that it alone would make much of a difference given UK conditions is far-fetched.

[HindleA]

http://policypress.co.uk/journals" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ijcc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/jpsj" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SpinningHugo]

Ot to take two cities I know well, Oxford and Cambridge.

Over the last 25 years, one has expanded dramatically, with large amounts of house building around it. The other has seen hardly any.

Now the property prices in both have increased, but in Oxford it is worse. Oxford is constrained by the land on which you can build.

Now, this is not quite like London. Oxford is surrounded on one side by flood plain, and on the other by the CCotswalds, meaning the amount of land that can be freed for development is not just contrained by regulation. But, in Cambridge, where the land was available, it was built on rapidly, causing the city to grow quickly.

The greenbelt around our cities was diesignated as such by the post war Labour government to prevent urban sprawl. In London this is now counter-productive, as the sprawl is happening outside the 'belt. causing huge numbers to commute long distance. Much of that greenbelt needs to go. We need the infrastructure to support building from the state (road, rail, sewerage). We also need to deregulate on height and cost: what matters is density (ie numbers) not whether it is 'affordable. Let teh developers make profits if they like, the best way of helping the poorest is not through price regulation but through there being more units.

We need to grab the uplift given through deregulation through the tax system.

An LVT is of major benefit in places like Scranton where there is insufficient incentive to build. That just isn't the case in London (and Oxford, and Cambridge, and Brighton).

The Tories are killing themselves because they're in the grip of their Nimby voters. If Cameron wasn't prepared to face up to them, May certainly won't.

But Labour isn't proposing these measures either. Instead it is back to the 1970s, with unfair distribtution to a lucky few, regulation of rents (counterproductive) and other market tinkering. Promises of X00,000s of new homes are completely empty, unless backed with promises on deregulation, and infrastructure (and immigration: we'll need foreign labour).

The centrists are right again, but nobody likes them.

[HindleA]

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/twenty-fir ... ion-notice" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


21st Century Fox / Sky merger inquiry

[PaulfromYorkshire]

The idea that Corbynism has won seems to me to hugely overstate the situation.

IMHO, what Corbyn has achieved is not some kind of "lurch" to the left. Rather he has enabled the party to regain control of itself from the Westminster & City based establishment, from what would have been called until very recently the "upper class".

Hugo doesn't rate Rayner, yet she's a future leader the establishment truly fear. Why? Not because she's a left winger. She really isn't is she? Because she's working class.

(cJA bold)

I can't agree or disagree with the part about Hugo not accepting Rayner as a Labour leader - I don't know Hugo
You're absolutely right about non-acceptance of Rayner as Labour leader based upon classism
Others I do know are probably not even consciously aware of their class assumptions and prejudices - I'm not referring to anyone here

This is what SH thinks of Angela Rayner (from yesterday). TBF I did goad him a little. I don't agree with him though.

I am not sure I get why Rayner is so well thought of. Her backstory is great. I know the area she grew up in well as it is very close to where I grew up too, She clearly has a lot of drive and determination to have made it to where she is.

But, and I am sorry there is a but, I haven't actually heard her say anything interesting yet. That may be that I've missed it. RoT follows Education far more closely than I do, and so perhaps she has said something of interest.

Rayner has proved effective as an opponent. She and her team do excellent research that time and time again allows her to prove Greening wrong at the despatch box. Particularly around expansion of the Free Schools programme.

She also has the idea, which I agree requires a lot more fleshing out of a National Education Service.

Nothing interesting to say? We'll have to agree to differ.

[SpinningHugo]

The idea that Corbynism has won seems to me to hugely overstate the situation.

IMHO, what Corbyn has achieved is not some kind of "lurch" to the left. Rather he has enabled the party to regain control of itself from the Westminster & City based establishment, from what would have been called until very recently the "upper class".

Hugo doesn't rate Rayner, yet she's a future leader the establishment truly fear. Why? Not because she's a left winger. She really isn't is she? Because she's working class.

(cJA bold)

I can't agree or disagree with the part about Hugo not accepting Rayner as a Labour leader - I don't know Hugo
You're absolutely right about non-acceptance of Rayner as Labour leader based upon classism
Others I do know are probably not even consciously aware of their class assumptions and prejudices - I'm not referring to anyone here

This is what SH thinks of Angela Rayner (from yesterday). TBF I did goad him a little. I don't agree with him though.

I am not sure I get why Rayner is so well thought of. Her backstory is great. I know the area she grew up in well as it is very close to where I grew up too, She clearly has a lot of drive and determination to have made it to where she is.

But, and I am sorry there is a but, I haven't actually heard her say anything interesting yet. That may be that I've missed it. RoT follows Education far more closely than I do, and so perhaps she has said something of interest.

Rayner has proved effective as an opponent. She and her team do excellent research that time and time again allows her to prove Greening wrong at the despatch box. Particularly around expansion of the Free Schools programme.

She also has the idea, which I agree requires a lot more fleshing out of a National Education Service.

Nothing interesting to say? We'll have to agree to differ.

I don't think we can say the National Education Service (which is basically empty) was in fact Rayner's idea

https://labourlist.org/2015/07/educatio ... n-service/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As for the despatch box stuff, I suspect you've googled the £1.3bn on free schools, But that was an empty goal: the Tories pulling the old trick of moving money around and announcing it as extra funding. I don't think we can attribute much brilliance to Ms Rayner on that score.

But, watch this space. McDonnell, for example, has surprised me with how effective he is, and maybe Rayner will do the same, I don't know, I've jnot seen much of her.

But I do stand by my view that she is a slightly taller dwarf (because of her backstory) in the most undistinguished Labour cabinet or shadow cabinet since, well, ever..

Oh, and I think the media rise (and rapidly fall when they'd seen her in action) of Long-Bailey is instructive. There is an interest in new faces, almost all the old Labour spokespeople of the Brown/Miliband years have gone, and wont be brought back. Stand by for profiles on Richard Burgon (!), and how effective he is.

[citizenJA]

---
But, watch this space.

(cJA edit)

[PaulfromYorkshire]

I don't think we can say the National Education Service (which is basically empty) was in fact Rayner's idea

https://labourlist.org/2015/07/educatio ... n-service/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As for the despatch box stuff, I suspect you've googled the £1.3bn on free schools, But that was an empty goal: the Tories pulling the old trick of moving money around and announcing it as extra funding. I don't think we can attribute much brilliance to Ms Rayner on that score.

But, watch this space. McDonnell, for example, has surprised me with how effective he is, and maybe Rayner will do the same, I don't know, I've jnot seen much of her.

But I do stand by my view that she is a slightly taller dwarf (because of her backstory) in the most undistinguished Labour cabinet or shadow cabinet since, well, ever..

Oh, and I think the media rise (and rapidly fall when they'd seen her in action) of Long-Bailey is instructive. There is an interest in new faces, almost all the old Labour spokespeople of the Brown/Miliband years have gone, and wont be brought back. Stand by for profiles on Richard Burgon (!), and how effective he is.

Funnily enough I've largely ignored Long-Bailey, who seemed to me to attract a lot of attention with little substance. I hope she lives up to it in due course and I wish her well.

On the other hand I have followed the work of Rayner closely. I am as you know very interested in education, particularly HE, so I would. In fact I have seen her "live" in the House vs Greening and felt she was very impressive. It was one of many examples where she had (or her team had) done the hard work of digging out figures from the HoC Library etc. and then challenged the government with clear, simple facts. This for me is powerful opposition, backed up as it is with passion and the "fire in the belly" that so many feel has been missing from politics.

In any case, you'll agree that she is no rabid lefty. Yet she has a prominent position in the Shadow Cabinet. In fact, it was in no small part due to Rayner and Abrahams (also excellent) joining Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet that I decided to vote for him in the second leadership contest. If they could work with him, he must be alright was my thinking.

[citizenJA]

Rayner's achievements prior election representing Ashton-under-Lyne and her current work demonstrate competence.
Tory intolerance of regular people successfully rising through wit and grit is despicable.

[citizenJA]

SH doesn't care about all that, PaulfromYorkshire

[HindleA]

No doubt to being a sizeist.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Funnily enough this literally just popped into my inbox from WonkHE. Rayner is number 33 in their "power list".

Angela Rayner — Shadow Secretary of State for Education

Only elected to Parliament in 2015, Angela Rayner was hastily appointed to the shadow education brief in the wake of the mass parliamentary revolt against Jeremy Corbyn last July. Yet Rayner is not the usual tribal leftist. She has praised the impact of the Blair governments and is known to be liked by Labour MPs on all wings of the party.

This, combined with her unashamed working-class roots and impressive performances in the shadow education brief has led to Rayner being tipped as a possible successor to Corbyn. That may be some time off, but there is every chance Rayner could find herself as Secretary of State in the next few years, with responsibility for implementing a free tuition policy. Yet Rayner’s main passion is not universities (she did not go to university herself) but instead FE and early years education and she has expressed frustration at how HE dominates the debate at the expense of other parts of education. Rayner is someone who anyone with a long-term interest in influencing education policy should be seeking to get the ear of.

http://wonkhe.com/2017-higher-education-powerlist/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HindleA]

When did they change the order of penalties,or was in just in that competition?Bloody confused me on later reading.

[PorFavor]

I wasn't too keen on Angela Rayner at first because I thought she was just floating on a cloud of working-classness with nothing else going for her. Then I changed my mind.

[SpinningHugo]

I wasn't too keen on Angela Rayner at first because I thought she was just floating on a cloud of working-classness with nothing else going for her. Then I changed my mind.

What changed your mind?

[HindleA]

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment ... tion-52465" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


A huge shift in rhetoric, but will there be effective action?

Sajid Javid’s speech this week was promising, but it remains to be seen whether the green paper will demonstrate that social housing is ‘valued’, says Jules Birch

[HindleA]

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/ ... imant-fat/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Disability benefits assessor from Northampton told an undercover reporter a claimant was “too fat” to wipe her bum, a tribunal heard. Alan Barham was caught making the remarks about a disability benefit applicant on Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches: The Great Benefits Row’, broadcast in April 2016.


Bastard.

[SpinningHugo]

. In fact, it was in no small part due to Rayner and Abrahams (also excellent) joining Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet that I decided to vote for him in the second leadership contest. If they could work with him, he must be alright was my thinking.

Seems a bit of a strange basis to have cast your vote as she has only been an MP since 2015 and had not trioubled the scorers with anything she had said beifore her promotion from obscurity.

She wasn't, of course, Corbyn's first choice when Lucy Powell quit.

(Poor old Lucy Powell. Yet another whose career is finsihed before it began.)

[PaulfromYorkshire]

I wasn't too keen on Angela Rayner at first because I thought she was just floating on a cloud of working-classness with nothing else going for her. Then I changed my mind.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

. In fact, it was in no small part due to Rayner and Abrahams (also excellent) joining Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet that I decided to vote for him in the second leadership contest. If they could work with him, he must be alright was my thinking.

Seems a bit of a strange basis to have cast your vote as she has only been an MP since 2015 and had not trioubled the scorers with anything she had said beifore her promotion from obscurity.

She wasn't, of course, Corbyn's first choice when Lucy Powell quit.

(Poor old Lucy Powell. Yet another whose career is finsihed before it began.)

ENTIRELY her own misjudgement and fault. She did some great work with Ed Miliband and could still have been doing so, if she had listened to real people instead of those siren voices.

I hope she finds a way back. She can be HIGHLY effective when pointing in the right direction.

[SpinningHugo]

. In fact, it was in no small part due to Rayner and Abrahams (also excellent) joining Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet that I decided to vote for him in the second leadership contest. If they could work with him, he must be alright was my thinking.

Seems a bit of a strange basis to have cast your vote as she has only been an MP since 2015 and had not trioubled the scorers with anything she had said beifore her promotion from obscurity.

She wasn't, of course, Corbyn's first choice when Lucy Powell quit.

(Poor old Lucy Powell. Yet another whose career is finsihed before it began.)

ENTIRELY her own misjudgement and fault. She did some great work with Ed Miliband and could still have been doing so, if she had listened to real people instead of those siren voices.

I hope she finds a way back. She can be HIGHLY effective when pointing in the right direction.

Seumas won't forget. It is over for her, as for a large majority of the PLP. Must be awful for them.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Seumas won't forget. It is over for her, as for a large majority of the PLP. Must be awful for them.

[HindleA]

[HindleA]

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org. ... ember-2017" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How to value infrastructure

Improving cost benefit analyis


INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT

[Willow904]

Ot to take two cities I know well, Oxford and Cambridge.

Over the last 25 years, one has expanded dramatically, with large amounts of house building around it. The other has seen hardly any.

Now the property prices in both have increased, but in Oxford it is worse. Oxford is constrained by the land on which you can build.

Now, this is not quite like London. Oxford is surrounded on one side by flood plain, and on the other by the CCotswalds, meaning the amount of land that can be freed for development is not just contrained by regulation. But, in Cambridge, where the land was available, it was built on rapidly, causing the city to grow quickly.

The greenbelt around our cities was diesignated as such by the post war Labour government to prevent urban sprawl. In London this is now counter-productive, as the sprawl is happening outside the 'belt. causing huge numbers to commute long distance. Much of that greenbelt needs to go. We need the infrastructure to support building from the state (road, rail, sewerage). We also need to deregulate on height and cost: what matters is density (ie numbers) not whether it is 'affordable. Let teh developers make profits if they like, the best way of helping the poorest is not through price regulation but through there being more units.

We need to grab the uplift given through deregulation through the tax system.

An LVT is of major benefit in places like Scranton where there is insufficient incentive to build. That just isn't the case in London (and Oxford, and Cambridge, and Brighton).

The Tories are killing themselves because they're in the grip of their Nimby voters. If Cameron wasn't prepared to face up to them, May certainly won't.

But Labour isn't proposing these measures either. Instead it is back to the 1970s, with unfair distribtution to a lucky few, regulation of rents (counterproductive) and other market tinkering. Promises of X00,000s of new homes are completely empty, unless backed with promises on deregulation, and infrastructure (and immigration: we'll need foreign labour).

The centrists are right again, but nobody likes them.

Sorry, but I just can't see the link between greenbelt restrictions and what I'm talking about, which is the gap between house-building permissions and actual completions. Especially in London, despite the enormous incentives you suggest there is to build there. If permission has been granted and all the profit comes from the completed house as you suggest, and not the permission as I suggest, then how to explain so much potential profit being left in limbo for years on end?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/201 ... ent-built/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Capture3.PNG (16.4 KiB) Viewed 6872 times

You say "let the developers make a profit if they like". I say LVT would help developers do just that. It would move some of the profit potential from the landowner to the developer who does the actual hard work of building and developing (and that includes businesses, not just housing, there's a much wider picture here all of which impacts on housing, where we live, where we work etc)

[SpinningHugo]

Ot to take two cities I know well, Oxford and Cambridge.

Over the last 25 years, one has expanded dramatically, with large amounts of house building around it. The other has seen hardly any.

Now the property prices in both have increased, but in Oxford it is worse. Oxford is constrained by the land on which you can build.

Now, this is not quite like London. Oxford is surrounded on one side by flood plain, and on the other by the CCotswalds, meaning the amount of land that can be freed for development is not just contrained by regulation. But, in Cambridge, where the land was available, it was built on rapidly, causing the city to grow quickly.

The greenbelt around our cities was diesignated as such by the post war Labour government to prevent urban sprawl. In London this is now counter-productive, as the sprawl is happening outside the 'belt. causing huge numbers to commute long distance. Much of that greenbelt needs to go. We need the infrastructure to support building from the state (road, rail, sewerage). We also need to deregulate on height and cost: what matters is density (ie numbers) not whether it is 'affordable. Let teh developers make profits if they like, the best way of helping the poorest is not through price regulation but through there being more units.

We need to grab the uplift given through deregulation through the tax system.

An LVT is of major benefit in places like Scranton where there is insufficient incentive to build. That just isn't the case in London (and Oxford, and Cambridge, and Brighton).

The Tories are killing themselves because they're in the grip of their Nimby voters. If Cameron wasn't prepared to face up to them, May certainly won't.

But Labour isn't proposing these measures either. Instead it is back to the 1970s, with unfair distribtution to a lucky few, regulation of rents (counterproductive) and other market tinkering. Promises of X00,000s of new homes are completely empty, unless backed with promises on deregulation, and infrastructure (and immigration: we'll need foreign labour).

The centrists are right again, but nobody likes them.

Sorry, but I just can't see the link between greenbelt restrictions and what I'm talking about, which is the gap between house-building permissions and actual completions. Especially in London, despite the enormous incentives you suggest there is to build there. If permission has been granted and all the profit comes from the completed house as you suggest, and not the permission as I suggest, then how to explain so much potential profit being left in limbo for years on end?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/201 ... ent-built/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Capture3.PNG

You say "let the developers make a profit if they like". I say LVT would help developers do just that. It would move some of the profit potential from the landowner to the developer who does the actual hard work of building and developing (and that includes businesses, not just housing, there's a much wider picture here all of which impacts on housing, where we live, where we work etc)

1. Why do you think that number of non-completions is high? I don't. Happens all the time that people put in applications that are speculative, or that they feel might be profitable in the future.

2. It won't "shift the profit to the developers." The developers are in a mature competitive market. Their rate of return is determined by the market. It won't go up or down with the shift to LVT. What they can charge may change, but their profit margins won't change because of the competition. That is capitalism.

LVT doesn't give developers higher profits. What it does do is create an incentive to use underdevelpoped land as it is taxed at its developed rate. It works well where the incentives to develop are too low (think Scranton).

The idea that the incentives to develop ^in London^ are too low is, I am afraid, ridiculous. See rents.

Much of the greenbelt has to go. If we aren't prepared to that, the problem will just remain. Attempts to regulate the market, by price fixing or less invasive measures, will only make the problem worse.

[Willow904]

How does developing green belt help people live in London where the jobs are? Why is "speculative" planning permission with no intention to build desirable/acceptable? How is 320,000 homes or a third of all permissions over a 5 year period not high? If land with planning permissions but no houses is taxed appropriately, doesn't it stand to reason that house builders are better placed to profit by actually building them than landowners who do not?

It's about changing the relationship between landowners and those that use the land, incentivising people to be more active land users rather than inactive land owners.

[SpinningHugo]

How does developing green belt help people live in London where the jobs are? Why is "speculative" planning permission with no intention to build desirable/acceptable? How is 320,000 homes or a third of all permissions over a 5 year period not high? If land with planning permissions but no houses is taxed appropriately, doesn't it stand to reason that house builders are better placed to profit by actually building them than landowners who do not?

It's about changing the relationship between landowners and those that use the land, incentivising people to be more active land users rather than inactive land owners.

Look at the commuter statistics. People are commuting into London from greater and greater distances. We need

(i) to enable the millions of people who commute from outside to live nearer (and to enable the increase of the millions who want to live in Lond to happen)

(ii) Allowing the City to grow enables businesses to locate further out: still within striking distance of the City

I am not at all surprised that a third of permissions don't happen. That is business: you get the permissions in case they are needed. If I'd been asked to guess, about what I'd expect. I doubt an LVT will make any difference at all to that.

Again, I support an LVT. A good idea. What I dispute is that it will be of much, if any, use in tackling the UK housing shortage. That needs government spending on infrastructure, and de-regulation of land use, both horizontally and vertically. Someone who thinks London is full of underdeveloped brown field hasn't looked into brownfield development. Brownfield development is the Simon Jenkins view: enough to refute it.

Someone who agrees is Chris Dillow, whose post we started this with (see our twitter exchange).

[HindleA]

Said utter bastard who was well regarded and well paid to be so found quilty,waiting to see if he gets suspended.

[HindleA]

PF -gin hour is over and the neighbours are complaining.

[HindleA]

Why my neighbours are complaining about you,I have no idea.

[Willow904]

How does developing green belt help people live in London where the jobs are? Why is "speculative" planning permission with no intention to build desirable/acceptable? How is 320,000 homes or a third of all permissions over a 5 year period not high? If land with planning permissions but no houses is taxed appropriately, doesn't it stand to reason that house builders are better placed to profit by actually building them than landowners who do not?

It's about changing the relationship between landowners and those that use the land, incentivising people to be more active land users rather than inactive land owners.

Look at the commuter statistics. People are commuting into London from greater and greater distances. We need

(i) to enable the millions of people who commute from outside to live nearer (and to enable the increase of the millions who want to live in Lond to happen)

(ii) Allowing the City to grow enables businesses to locate further out: still within striking distance of the City

I am not at all surprised that a third of permissions don't happen. That is business: you get the permissions in case they are needed. If I'd been asked to guess, about what I'd expect. I doubt an LVT will make any difference at all to that.

Again, I support an LVT. A good idea. What I dispute is that it will be of much, if any, use in tackling the UK housing shortage. That needs government spending on infrastructure, and de-regulation of land use, both horizontally and vertically. Someone who thinks London is full of underdeveloped brown field hasn't looked into brownfield development. Brownfield development is the Simon Jenkins view: enough to refute it.

Someone who agrees is Chris Dillow, whose post we started this with (see our twitter exchange).

But it would at the very least generate tax income and/or discourage speculative planning permissions, would it not?

We already allow building on green belt. Some of these unused permissions are on green fields. I don't believe allowing more green belt to be developed ad hoc is going to make as much difference as you think because you are ignoring how much land is in the hands of so few people and how little incentive there is for them to release as much as is needed to house everyone as housing everyone will inevitably lead to house prices and thus land values coming down. The tax system is the most effective tool governments have to encourage the kind of behaviour they want. I remain convinced it's the most effective tool to encourage private house building, though council/social housing is still vital for filling the housing gap private supply will never fill.

[SpinningHugo]

But it would at the very least generate tax income and/or discourage speculative planning permissions, would it not?

We already allow building on green belt. Some of these unused permissions are on green fields. I don't believe allowing more green belt to be developed ad hoc is going to make as much difference as you think because you are ignoring how much land is in the hands of so few people and how little incentive there is for them to release as much as is needed to house everyone as housing everyone will inevitably lead to house prices and thus land values coming down. The tax system is the most effective tool governments have to encourage the kind of behaviour they want. I remain convinced it's the most effective tool to encourage private house building, though council/social housing is still vital for filling the housing gap private supply will never fill.

1. it depends. I think it is usually thought of as replacing council tax and business rates, so the overall take may not be greater.

2. No. For it to work the LVT has to be set at potential.

3. Green belt and green field are not the same thing.

4. I completely agree with you that the tax system is the best way to encourage behaviour we want. I don't agree that there is anywhere near enough green field space in the areas where there is demand for the tax system alone to solve this problem, or even come close. We need to deregiulate and spend massively even to put a dent into the housing problem (or more probably stop it getting rapidly still worse).

There is a lot of stuff out there on brownfield and greenfield, and how we need to deregulate

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.co.uk ... ouses.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Economist has lots of good stuff (though they omit the need to clawback the gains of deregulation in tax from the lucky landowners.)

5. At least we haven't had "just build more council houses". Perhaps in another place.

[tinyclanger2]

What ho.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

What ho.

Don't know the correct response to that, but is it time to turn the page?