With Strategy 8 Britain can aim for a society where families are largely self-sufficient in looking after themselves into old age. At present, despite 300 years of enormous economic growth, never before seen in world history, many families still can’t do this.
First, a reminder of the 10 strategies:
1 Economic modelling of this proposed programme
2 A 20 year programme of redeploying wasted resources
3 Responding to climate change and tackling plastics
4 Establish a North/South divide and Southern restraint policy
5 Private sector investment
6 A 20 year programme of raising wages and incomes
7 A 20 year programme of reducing benefits
8 A 20 year programme to create a society where food and housing are paid from the income of each person and family, and pensions and social care in old age are paid from their savings
9 Public sector investment and day to day spending
10 Continuing to promote high tech etc
Strategy 8 A society where, for most of us, food and housing are paid from the income of each person and family, and pensions and social care in old age are paid from their savings
It is an offence against humanity that after nearly 300 years of monumental increases in income and wealth, some people in this country still cannot afford to feed, house, and look after themselves into old age.
I haven’t been able to find figures for this staggering enrichment of mankind, other than for the 19th century: 1800 to 1900. But it is estimated that an average family in 1900 was ONE HUNDRED TIMES better off than a similar family in 1800. ONE HUNDRED TIMES. That is a family could buy 100 times as many pots and pans and chairs and rail trips to the seaside and postcards and stamps, and from 1851, see a fax machine working at Great Exhibitions, and automobiles, and if they were lucky, a flying machine without a balloon. They could even eat better, see a doctor in desperation, and pay to commute to work and even pay a bit for educating their children. Many even had drains and flushing loos. They could even put a penny or two in the collection at church.
Put like this, ONE HUNDRED TIMES doesn’t sound an unlikely improvement in well-being: they really were A HUNDRED TIMES better off.
You could even hazard a guess that you must be ONE HUNDRED TIMES better off again now than in 1900, when you had no car and paved roads, but now have a small electric car in which you can go anywhere, and can fly off to the Costa Lot and even find a fish and chip shop.
Such a change has never happened before in the whole of world history.
So why are so many people in Britain in a sorry mess in 2026? It’s 300 years nearly since this huge change got under way.
And what would the Blessed Margaret think of this? She would be appalled. Her vision of a property-owning nation investing their savings on the stock market is even more remote now than when she had her vision. She thought it could be attained with a resurrected UK market economy. Instead, it’s gone backwards in the last 50 years, and the foundation on which she was building has been half-destroyed.
However, if the nation has a policy of raising wages and pensions and driving economic growth as set out in this Vision, then we can see our way also to improving housing conditions.
Housing
There seems to be general agreement we need more houses, or rather dwellings, more housing units. There seem to be various reasons for this: increased population; a long history of increased household formation (smaller “families”); replacement of some old housing; changes of location including those affecting travel to work; car garaging and parking; social and environmental considerations, most notably for climate change; probably others.
On the other hand, with a falling birthrate, we do not need a 20 year programme of mass house building that results in surplus houses in 20 or 40 years’ time; and many houses in wrong locations.
Comparisons with our European neighbours also show that the housing stock occupation rate % in the UK is very high—which is not unexpected given the housing shortage. But it also indicates that buying and selling is harder here, as there is less vacant stock at any one time. There are fewer properties to go into the pipeline.
We also need better quality new housing. The general view now is that the quality of house building is poor: poor materials and sometimes shoddy construction. The cladding issue is an extreme example, but by no means the only example. Another issue is the privatisation of estate roads on many developments. These internal roads are then not built to highway standards and consequently not adopted by them and maintained by them in perpetuity. Being lower standard construction, they will also need earlier renewal. The costs of this and, worse, the hassle of agreeing and organising the work, will fall on groups of house-owners. These are unwelcome costs and challenges for future generations, which our generation all fortunately avoided.
Years back there were house-building standards. I remember the Parker-Morris standards. They specified minimum room sizes, storage space, etc. These were abolished by the Tory government in 1980, as the market would sort the matter out. It has. Since then average new-build house size has reduced from 82/93 square metres to 76 square metres. The UK’s new build size is one of the smallest in Europe. Meanwhile the space needs of families have increased. Cost competition of course drives down house and room sizes. But local councils still maintain estate and road layout standards for planning applications.
We also need house building which is part of our response to climate change and regional policies (Strategies 3 and 4 above).
We also need more housing that the average income and poorer families can afford—so called affordable housing—though of course all housing is affordable to someone! Since the private sector do not rush to build such housing and quotas are demanded of them, then public provision is needed if sufficient numbers are to be provided.
Some housing will become affordable through increases in wages, including from economic growth.
New towns
The Government has a new towns policy. But this does not deliver any new towns—the closest to a new town is that near Bristol. But its location so far south is questionable anyway, if we wish to level up the regions. A hugely more ambitious plan is needed.
The Government’s housing strategy and the new towns strategy should be another of the key parts of tackling the North/South Divide and of regional strategies. It’s also part of tackling climate change. A bigger investment in housing would also boost economic growth. (Strategies 3, 4 and 5 above)
We also need recruitment and training of planners, architects, developers, builders, building trades, kitchen, furnishings, landscapers, tree nurseries, infrastructure builders etc. The nation is short of 3,000 planners — the developer across our road bewails the fact these bureaucrats are in short supply. The planner for this development is part-time and could only be contacted in the middle of the week. She was so efficient and busy you could never speak to her. But she was part of the glory of local government efficiency, cost cutting, increased productivity and a 30% reduction in councils’ spending in those heady days of Cameron and Osborne —and the Lib Dems. (See Strategy 9 on public spending )
Housing finance
What about the financial market for those buying a house?
Here we need a return to 25 year mortgages, which still obtain in the USA—or in part of it—-instead of the nonsense of thinking we’re all financial wizards and can predict the future of interest rates, and do it successfully every two years and not be outwitted by the City of London.
( And the assumption we just love to take a break from leisure and agonise over this incomprehensible task 12 or more times in our lives instead of only once. Big finance houses grow their business by adding churn, and load the family with admin! My essays on IT treat of this: elsewhere in Public Policy Conjectures )
Our family and our parents had 25 or even 30 year mortgages — once in a lifetime trying to get the best deal. On our current house, it included a life insurance policy that matured in 25 years and produced a sum in 2001 to pay off our loan plus a profit of the same amount. No-one with a mortgage today can say they have done or will do as well as that. Yet the entire nation is hugely richer than in 1966 when we took out our first mortgage on our first property, a flat. Of course, the nation’s then wise system and our good fortune is still possible today—if we organised ourselves properly again. MOBGA: Make ‘Ouse Buying Great Again!
This proposal is built into Strategy 2 : redeploying wasted resources, wasted jobs, careers and lives away from constantly changing everybody’s mortgage.
And building more houses and Strategy 6, increasing wages, will move more families into a position to buy their own homes.
The rental market
To complete the strategy of enabling everyone to feed, house themselves, finance their retirement and social care, a major change is needed to the housing rental market.
It will sound histrionic to say that the present housing rental market is evil. But indeed it is. Landlords extort obscenely high rents from tenants and deliver a product that is too often sub-standard. The market is morally indefensible.
Potential house-buyers are told they are too poor to afford a mortgage. They are directed to rent instead. Indeed, they have no option but to rent. Then they pay the landlord’s mortgage instead of their own.
How can anyone defend passing the costs of someone else’s mortgage on to tenants who are told they are too poor to afford a mortgage of their own? It’s clearly evil.
And clearly nonsense into the bargain.
Landlords should not be able to charge mortgage costs to tenants. If not, then rents would be lower.
Look at it this way. It is unwise to borrow to invest on the stock exchange, as you will not cover your outgoings plus receive an acceptable dividend—unless you invest high risk– and the risk does indeed pay off and you make a profit not a loss. Not only is it unwise to borrow to invest —it is rarely done.
Why should you expect to borrow to invest when it comes to property rather than stocks and shares?
The landlord recovers his investment from selling the property—just as you sell the stocks and shares you bought, when you no longer wish to hold your savings in that form. The buying and selling of assets enables a saver and investor to enter the market, earn a return on capital, and to exit by selling. Since the last war, he has generally be able to exit with a capital gain.
Fifty years ago, the rental market was not like it is now. I don’t think it’s like this in mainland Europe.
We really can’t have a housing rental market where people who can’t afford to buy a property, instead buy one for their landlord . It is evil. Renting a house is supposed to be suitable for poorer people.
Any housing rental reform I have heard of does not deal with this big issue—which is the evil of the current market practice.
Clearly if landlords sell up en mass as a result, what happens to the properties? Well, they could be bought for public housing at discounted prices, as the bottom would fall out of the market. Or some tenants would then be able to afford to buy them. Divided properties may be returned to owner-occupier use. There must be other outcomes as they would not stand empty for long.
It is also worth comparing the private and public rental sectors. How did council house finance work years ago when most were built? Council housing was financed by 60 year loans—and of course the long term average interest rate was probably only 50% of what it is today. There may also have been some subsidy—though I think it was quite small. I seem to remember its being a loss on the housing revenue account rather than a subsidy per house. The cost of housing was also much lower per square foot because of fewer facilities e.g. garages or parking. But that rose with the introduction of Parker Morris standards which lasted until 1980.
So council rents were commensurate with or similar to private sector rents (excluding currently charged financing charges).
The current UK housing rental market is an open invitation to revolution — along with the super-rich, World Cup Ticket prices, Blatter and Infantino, banks’ crooked dealings with customers, lack of economic growth, poor pension prospects, and other inequities. All these evils are the bread and butter of extreme politics. They are a major cause of Peasant Revolts.
I’m afraid the housing rental market is part of broken Britain. And a major factor at that, and one that I have never seen recognised by anyone else. It needs to change. It must change.
Summary
With these reforms of housing, increased wages, and economic growth as proposed in previous strategies, we can reasonably aim for a society where most of us pay for our food and housing out of our annual income, and set aside savings for pensions and social care in old age.
© Philip Morgan 2026 Public Policy Conjectures All rights reserved
Leave a Reply