Duncan Bowie on postwar housing policy
The Labour Party, Housing and Urban Transformation by Phil Child published by Bloomsbury
This book focuses on Labour Party policy on housing between 1945 and 1964, the six years of government and the 13 years of opposition. The book seeks to relate policy development to the development of the party’s ideology, which makes the study different from earlier works. Child does not focus on the development of top-down policy – Aneurin Bevan gets surprisingly few mentions, and there is little reference to policies passed at Labour Party conferences. Instead, Child’s commentary makes much use of the views of Labour (and occasionally Communist) activists in journals such as Socialist Commentary, Tribune, Labour Woman, Labour’s Northern Voice, Victory for Socialism and local papers such as the Baron’s Court Citizen. He notes that there was less division of views between the Bevanite left and the revisionist right than has been previously recognised.
Child examines the development of policy on slum clearance and new development, examining the critiques of both new town development and inner-city high-rises, noting the impact on working-class communities, and questioning, as many contemporaries did, the suitability of high-rise flats for families with children. This analysis is supported by a review of contemporary and more recent sociological studies.
Another focus of the book is the debate over who should be housed in council housing, and critically, who should be subsidised. Should housing be a universal social service, and council housing be available for the middle class and not just the working class? If the latter, should those on middle incomes be charged an economic rent, or should subsidy be universal? If an economic rent is to be charged, financial support is required for households unable to pay. Rebate systems were a matter for local determination.
Child also considers the approach of Labour to the private rented sector. In the early years, Labour was opposed to private landlordism, with policy papers and conference motions seeking the abolition of the private rented sector. Over time, it was recognized that this was not deliverable given the cost of compensating landlords, and instead Labour argued for the reintroduction of rent control, and promoting the municipalization (or socializing through housing associations) elements of the private rented sector. Policies pursued by many councils and by Labour in government after 1964.
Child also discusses Labour’s changing attitude to home ownership, with Labour increasingly recognising the aspirations of many working class households to own their own homes, with many being able to do so, contrasting with the current affordability crisis in the housing market which makes home ownership far beyond the reach of middle income as well as lower income households. This still impacts on Labour’s ambivalence on council house sales.
There is much in the study on the views of Labour intellectuals, such as Crosland and Crossman, both of whom were ministers, but also on the contributions of lesser known politicians, such as Frank Allaun, and the junior housing minister, James McCall, who has been largely ignored by previous housing historians. Sociologists such as Michael Young, Peter Wilmott, Pearl Jephcott and Ruth Glass are also referenced as well as more recent academics. This is an excellent and novel study, a book I wish I had written myself.