I have been invited to appear on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow, sometime between 8.30am and 9.00 am, to talk about whether council housing has a future. Preparing for this, I have come across the remarkable information that, at its peak, social housing accounted for half of all households in Scotland. That proportion has now slumped to a quarter. And the Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland has predicted that this will fall to only eight per cent in 14 years.

This is a measure of just how enormous was the faith once shown in the welfare state: to provide housing for half the population in Scotland, at least. And now that faith has enormously diminished. When was the last time you heard anyone suggest that the state should provide half our housing?

Housing is a part of the welfare state that is quietly being dumped. No government spokesman has ever stated this as policy. Quite the contrary. But this is what has been happening over a long period. (See the chapter on housing in The Welfare State We're In for details.)

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Housing

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