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Read The Book
Before the welfare state
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The Greycoat Hospital
The Greycoat Hospital was once a workhouse. It has since been a hospital and a school. It has a very long welfare history. It has now been taken over by the state.
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The Greycoat Hospital
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Education and State
Licence
Stats
Did Channel 4 know what it was doing when it commissioned this film?
A TV programme is coming up on Thursday evening in which I expect I will appear. It is a 90 minute film by Martin Durkin about the huge national debt that has piled up and his solution. He will be … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Behaviour & Crime, Healthcare and the NHS, Housing, Media, including BBC bias, Parenting, Reform, Tax and growth, Welfare benefits
Have the housing benefit changes been thought through?
Yesterday The Times had a useful commentary on problems that could be created by housing benefit. Unfortunately there is a charging barrier at Timesonline. But here are a few excerpts: “…the Government’s proposals seem extraordinarily simplistic and hasty. From next … Continue reading
More detail on the changes to social housing
1.67 The Government believes social housing is an important element in fostering community cohesion and supporting households in housing need. The number of social rented properties fell between 1997 and 2009. The result has been rising housing waiting lists combined … Continue reading
“And while a generation ago only one in ten families in social housing had no-one working, this had risen to one in three by 2008-09.” The section on housing and social care in the Comprehensive Spending Review
I can announce that grant funding for social care will be increased by an additional £1 billion by the fourth year of the Spending Review. And a further £1 billion for social care will be provided through the NHS to … Continue reading
Cutting housing allowances
From an article in the Guardian: Almost 300,000 people are at risk of being squeezed out of their properties in London because of the government’s plan to reduce housing benefits paid to some of the most vulnerable people in the … Continue reading
Trying to end subsidized council rents
From article in Telegraph: In what is being described as the biggest shake-up in housing policy since the Second World War, a host of other policies designed to ensure more people receive housing on the basis of need will be … Continue reading
This is a unique opportunity for welfare reform
The pace and breadth of welfare reforms that Iain Duncan Smith is attempting have not been seen in a couple of generations. This is the first time that I know of that a new Secretary of State in this field … Continue reading
Beveridge would now be regarded as a right-wing fanatic
This morning I appeared on Broadcasting House, a BBC Radio 4 programme. I was discussing what had happened to state welfare since William Beveridge’s famous report. A Labour MP, Kate Green, was there taking a more favourable view of how … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Housing, Media, including BBC bias, Pensions, Reform, Welfare benefits
Housebuilder has to spend more money on getting planning permissions than on buying bricks.
Here is powerful evidence that the planning system is driving up the cost of housing. It is part of the system, now, that developers are obliged to create ‘affordable housing’ in expensive areas. This is gesture towards the idea of … Continue reading
Posted by James Bartholomew
Indexed in Housing
‘Slums’ that make for better people than council estates
Kevin McCloud’s experience of staying with a family in an Indian slum made fascinating television when I caught up with it last Saturday night. One of the most interesting aspects of it was that it challenged whether ‘slum clearance’ and … Continue reading