Manifestos – Part 2

In the absence of the Labour manifesto (the links are to a blank page at the moment), and Plaid manifesto, this post simply concerns the Plaid first 100 days plan – that is to say, their promise for the first 100 days of a Plaid government – as it affects housing.  The first (nice) thing to say about it is that housing gets its own heading.  Some party manifestos include housing under communities or whatever, which demonstrates discursively their priorities.  Their promise is to “protect renters, build more social homes, and improve the quality and energy efficiency of Welsh housing”.

In particular, it is striking to see that they will “[o]utline proposals on making renting in Wales fairer, and begin the work of legislating for a Right to Adequate Housing”.  It’s not clear what they mean by making renting fairer, but I assume they will get rid of the notice possession ground.  It will be interesting to see if they follow through on rents.

I’ve written before about my feelings/approach to the so-called “right to adequate housing”.  It is not that I am against it – who could be against it? – but, internationally, one can see how that right has been watered down, and generally squished; it creates expectations which one can only fear are unlikely to be satisfied.  But Plaid have committed themselves to it, and it is a worthy, ambitious aim – if the current polling is right, there will be more written about this “right”.  One part of adequacy (and it does depend how you define it) is about home efficiency, and they have committed to review the warm homes programme so that they will go “further and faster”.

They will also establish Unnos – a long-held commitment – which “will work closely with local authorities and housing associations to assemble land and secure finance for social housing”.  That has the potential to be a game changer in terms of becoming a focal point for development.  We all know that social housing will need to secure private finance for development and we must want Wales to develop the structures which are most amenable to getting that money.  It comes with massive risks.  Talking to/hobnobbing with a former CEO of a major social housing provider yesterday, he talked about the regulatory role with those private finance lenders have that go beyond government regulation.  The impact of financialisation on social housing has been immense, in changing housing management and allocation practices/policies.  There is important research (eg by Aalbers, Tim White, and Thomas Wainwright/Graham Manville and here) and we need to think about the effects of financialisation at the frontline of service delivery.  However, those effects are the trade-off for greater development, the latter being the policy choice at the moment.  That policy choice should not dim its effects on the sector.