Do you want to discuss boring politics? (24 Viewers)

[Captain Dart]

Also what was happening in 2022. As the article says this was before the energy price guarantee or whatever it was called when prices were higher than now. This graph is useful to reference prices at the time.

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Source OFGEN. Prices continue to go up a lot of costs have been loaded on the standing charges which are really outpacing inflation.

 

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[shmmeee]

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Source OFGEN. Prices continue to go up
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See that peak on your graph? That’s when this quote is from.

 

[shmmeee]

I have had just a quick look, I reckon you could power the homes of Coventry with 90 2MW turbines at a cost of around £200m. Obviously fag packet maths from the first links on google but seems like a huge opportunity for someone/council.

It seems you can get roof top wind turbines as well now, which I wasn't aware off. Something I'm going to explore as my roof isn't suitable for Solar without major rework.

I’ve always thought community geothermal and battery storage should be a requirement on new builds over say 20 plots (figures from my arse). Then solar as well. The costs work out easily over the buildings life. The problem with getting solar built is people like me looking at it but also thinking about selling and will I get that back before I sell. When really it should be amortised over a few owners. Community battery storage would make things like small turbines possible too.

 

[wingy]

View attachment 41584
Source OFGEN. Prices continue to go up a lot of costs have been loaded on the standing charges which are really outpacing inflation.
View attachment 41585

A special tax, unofficial of course get the algorithm to run the numbers country by country¿

 

[fernandopartridge]

I’ve always thought community geothermal and battery storage should be a requirement on new builds over say 20 plots (figures from my arse). Then solar as well. The costs work out easily over the buildings life. The problem with getting solar built is people like me looking at it but also thinking about selling and will I get that back before I sell. When really it should be amortised over a few owners. Community battery storage would make things like small turbines possible too.

It's just never going to happen whilst housebuilding is left in the hands of listed developers, it just doesn't work with their need to satisfy investors.

 

[shmmeee]

It's just never going to happen whilst housebuilding is left in the hands of listed developers, it just doesn't work with their need to satisfy investors.

Not sure what a listed developer is, but house builders big and small just want to make profit, like any company if you don’t legislate for it they won’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts. I’ve met a lot of house builders and there are far more immoral small builders than large in my experience, they all want to minimise costs and maximise returns tho.

 

[fernandopartridge]

Not sure what a listed developer is, but house builders big and small just want to make profit, like any company if you don’t legislate for it they won’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts. I’ve met a lot of house builders and there are far more immoral small builders than large in my experience, they all want to minimise costs and maximise returns tho.

Listed = a PLC, the final point you make is what I am saying.

 

[shmmeee]

Listed = a PLC, the final point you make is what I am saying.

Ah so private companies as opposed to state built?

I’d agree. Even housing associations are trying to get as much for their money as possible. I’m sure I’ve told the story on here of talking to one who wanted to knock down an estate they owned because “the gardens are too big and there’s too much green space and we could fit loads more houses on”. And they were generally a good social landlord otherwise (cared about educating and enriching their tenants, saw themselves as a social good etc)

Ideal world if you won’t/can’t legislate is we get back to proper state house building to set the standard and build enough that building shithole shoeboxes isn’t commercially viable because people have options.

Goes back IMO to the same stuff Marty was saying about communal energy and me about transport. Need to allow councils to raise their own funds and build their own stuff and not always be cap in hand to central govt or private developers.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Ah so private companies as opposed to state built?

I’d agree. Even housing associations are trying to get as much for their money as possible. I’m sure I’ve told the story on here of talking to one who wanted to knock down an estate they owned because “the gardens are too big and there’s too much green space and we could fit loads more houses on”. And they were generally a good social landlord otherwise (cared about educating and enriching their tenants, saw themselves as a social good etc)

Ideal world if you won’t/can’t legislate is we get back to proper state house building to set the standard and build enough that building shithole shoeboxes isn’t commercially viable because people have options.

Goes back IMO to the same stuff Marty was saying about communal energy and me about transport. Need to allow councils to raise their own funds and build their own stuff and not always be cap in hand to central govt or private developers.

Let’s say this changed tomorrow, how much do we realistically expect that to boost house building in this country? We can even chuck in planning reform too.

The 300k target for house building is based on 500k net migration (iirc) every year. The figures need to be adjusted to based on actual net migration and that’s without considering a deficit of 1.5m (probably more now) houses.

I’m deeply sceptical that these changes could boost house building to 500-600k houses per year indefinitely. That’s a population higher than a range of Coventry to Leeds every year.

 

[wingy]

Not sure what a listed developer is, but house builders big and small just want to make profit, like any company if you don’t legislate for it they won’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts. I’ve met a lot of house builders and there are far more immoral small builders than large in my experience, they all want to minimise costs and maximise returns tho.

20 yrs ago 4 bed detached built for £140K
Speculative, urban utilitarian design, don't know what it was sold for though Small company literally family affair,

 

[shmmeee]

Let’s say this changed tomorrow, how much do we realistically expect that to boost house building in this country? We can even chuck in planning reform too.

The 300k target for house building is based on 500k net migration (iirc) every year. The figures need to be adjusted to based on actual net migration and that’s without considering a deficit of 1.5m (probably more now) houses.

I’m deeply sceptical that these changes could boost house building to 500-600k houses per year indefinitely. That’s a population higher than a range of Coventry to Leeds every year.

The main blocker is labour (the workers not the party ), we can of course just like with nurses just stop capping the training courses or allow people to come into the country to work. You can see the impact the TCPA had in historic graphs which suggests planning alone knocks a couple of hundred thousand off.

I think total numbers are less important than where they’re built though. London needs housing, Hull does not, but builders build wherever they can.

I’m not sure anyone is talking about 600k/year, but we need to build more that’s unarguable. What’s your plan? Just deport people until we have enough?

 

[rob9872]

Standing charges on energy is a joke. Once the connection is made, the costs are pretty small. They even charge part of it for a smart meter - that should be a saving really as they dont need to send anyone out to read the meter!

One of the industries that should never have been privatised. It's about as pointless as car tax, you should pay that through the pumps and pay for the roads as you use them, energy should be the same and then you have a choice how much to spend and what on.

 

[Nuskyblue]

Serious question, I know you're a bit more clued on this sort of thing. For example, why haven't the council added something like £5pcm onto council tax and used it to fund a clean energy initiative, so a wind farm is built on the edge of the city or even in the city centre of top of buildings (is that even possible?) in return, the residents of the city get cheaper energy and even excess can be sold of to the grid.

Even stuff like forcing new housing estates in this city to come with Solar built on every home just seems sensible to me.

A wind farm on buildings would not work, solar maybe but you'd need some storage built into the equation.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

The main blocker is labour (the workers not the party ), we can of course just like with nurses just stop capping the training courses or allow people to come into the country to work. You can see the impact the TCPA had in historic graphs which suggests planning alone knocks a couple of hundred thousand off.

I think total numbers are less important than where they’re built though. London needs housing, Hull does not, but builders build wherever they can.

I’m not sure anyone is talking about 600k/year, but we need to build more that’s unarguable. What’s your plan? Just deport people until we have enough?

Both Labour and Tory parties signed up to the 300k house building target which was never met by the last government. Those numbers were predicated on net migration being 500k a year when it’s roughly 700-900k per year. Which means that even if the 300k house building target was met, there be a growing deficit of housing which stands at 1.5m already. Which puts costs up for buying and renting houses because that’s the general rule when demand far exceeds supply. It also means that the existing housing targets are not fit for purpose and the number should be higher than 300k.

The way you immediately resort to the deportation argument is why the conversation around immigration isn’t productive. Whenever I talk to left leaning friends, the first thing they say is that we need to build more and that’s the core issue. To a degree, that is true. However, how much is too much for the state to manage this?

If net migration is 700-900k per year, how sustainable is it to build the houses to support those levels? That’s not even delving into hospital building, schooling and roadworks and the resources needed to manage this. It quickly (and arguably already has) becomes a vicious cycle.

There is issues around corporations a) hoarding land, b) lack of incentives to build ‘affordable housing’ and c) planning system being out of date. Would these things being magically fixed lead to a boom of house building? Probably not.

Therefore probably comes a point where the country seriously looks at immigration caps that are actually enforced. Likewise, auditing of visas granted and if people are there for the stated purposes of their visa. For example, far more visas granted for social care workers than vacancies actually filled.

One final question, is there a number in mind that you would consider unsustainable for net migration?

 

[SBAndy]

Something I’ve floated before on the topic of housing was SDLT reform. Would it be viable to have people who “downsize” (i.e. move to a house in a lower council tax band) get some form of rebate? There will be a swathe of elderly in the country who are in houses that, realistically, are far bigger than they need. However, I’d imagine having to pay SDLT on top of moving costs, etc, puts people off. My gran lived in a 4-bed detached house until she finally had to go into care - dispassionately, there wasn’t a need for her to have 4 bedrooms for at least the last 5-10 years she was there. Reforming SDLT like this would potentially introduce a bit more fluidity to the housing market and ease the supply pressures further up the chain - albeit now thinking it through it may impact supply of the ‘starter home’ types.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Something I’ve floated before on the topic of housing was SDLT reform. Would it be viable to have people who “downsize” (i.e. move to a house in a lower council tax band) get some form of rebate? There will be a swathe of elderly in the country who are in houses that, realistically, are far bigger than they need. However, I’d imagine having to pay SDLT on top of moving costs, etc, puts people off. My gran lived in a 4-bed detached house until she finally had to go into care - dispassionately, there wasn’t a need for her to have 4 bedrooms for at least the last 5-10 years she was there. Reforming SDLT like this would potentially introduce a bit more fluidity to the housing market and ease the supply pressures further up the chain - albeit now thinking it through it may impact supply of the ‘starter home’ types.

Agreed on cutting and/or raising thresholds or even abolishing SDLT altogether, it does partly clogs up the property market. That said, I have my doubts that elderly people would move from their family homes because of SDLT.

The only people who would downsize are probably poorer pensioners who need the capital from downsizing.

 

[shmmeee]

Both Labour and Tory parties signed up to the 300k house building target which was never met by the last government. Those numbers were predicated on net migration being 500k a year when it’s roughly 700-900k per year. Which means that even if the 300k house building target was met, there be a growing deficit of housing which stands at 1.5m already. Which puts costs up for buying and renting houses because that’s the general rule when demand far exceeds supply. It also means that the existing housing targets are not fit for purpose and the number should be higher than 300k.

The way you immediately resort to the deportation argument is why the conversation around immigration isn’t productive. Whenever I talk to left leaning friends, the first thing they say is that we need to build more and that’s the core issue. To a degree, that is true. However, how much is too much for the state to manage this?

If net migration is 700-900k per year, how sustainable is it to build the houses to support those levels? That’s not even delving into hospital building, schooling and roadworks and the resources needed to manage this. It quickly (and arguably already has) becomes a vicious cycle.

There is issues around corporations a) hoarding land, b) lack of incentives to build ‘affordable housing’ and c) planning system being out of date. Would these things being magically fixed lead to a boom of house building? Probably not.

Therefore probably comes a point where the country seriously looks at immigration caps that are actually enforced. Likewise, auditing of visas granted and if people are there for the stated purposes of their visa. For example, far more visas granted for social care workers than vacancies actually filled.

One final question, is there a number in mind that you would consider unsustainable for net migration?

Why do you keep banging on about immigration? We need more houses even if it was zero.

 

[shmmeee]

Agreed on cutting and/or raising thresholds or even abolishing SDLT altogether, it does partly clogs up the property market. That said, I have my doubts that elderly people would move from their family homes because of SDLT.

The only people who would downsize are probably poorer pensioners who need the capital from downsizing.

Which economics text book told you increasing demand helps with supply?

 

[rob9872]

Why do you keep banging on about immigration? We need more houses even if it was zero.

That's true in the immediate, but the birthrate would balance things over a generation.

 

[shmmeee]

That's true in the immediate, but the birthrate would balance things over a generation.

This ignores the fact that households are smaller now because more people are single or divorced than fifty years ago and the fact that people will still want to move to London from other bits of the country. And the state of our housing stock generally.

Also I’m not sure “give it 30 years” is an effective political campaign.

 

[shmmeee]

Anyone on here able to access this and post the pdf? Seems to be evidence air conditioning/filtration in schools improves student performance, which sounds like woo to me but is interesting if not.

https://academic.oup.com/qje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/qje/qjaf013/8021051?redirectedFrom=fulltext&utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=qje&utm_medium=email#no-access-message

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Why do you keep banging on about immigration? We need more houses even if it was zero.

Exactly, if net migration was 0, the government would only address the housing deficit at the end of the parliament (1.5m homes). As it happens, the Government forecasts our population will grow by 2.5m people, something doesn’t add up. Two important things to note here; 1) the 300k target has never been met and 2) government forecasting for migration has consistently underestimated actual migration.

So why do I bring it up? It’s something that people on the left just do not want to address at all. In a recent Sky interview, Angela Rayner banged on about lack of social housing (which is right to bring up) but when the presenter said (mischievously) that 5 out of 7 homes would go to immigrants, she magically U-turned and said there was plenty of housing. Plainly, that isn’t true.

I understand the arguments put forward by a few people on the need to end certain practices for house building corporations. Ending those practices would help with house building. However, the simple equation here is that (in my mind) we’ve hit a critical mass where there’s just too much demand for housing because we have too many people. 300k houses built per year when your net migration is 2 to 3 times higher than that means your not putting a dent in it.

You ducked the simple question of how much net migration becomes unsustainable. Hypothetically, would 1m net migration be too much? 1.5m? 2m? Heck, why not 3m!?

Immigration is overall a net benefit for the country up to a certain point, it’s the simple adage that too much of something becomes bad for you.

 

[shmmeee]

Exactly, if net migration was 0, the government would only address the housing deficit at the end of the parliament (1.5m homes). As it happens, the Government forecasts our population will grow by 2.5m people, something doesn’t add up. Two important things to note here; 1) the 300k target has never been met and 2) government forecasting for migration has consistently underestimated actual migration.

So why do I bring it up? It’s something that people on the left just do not want to address at all. In a recent Sky interview, Angela Rayner banged on about lack of social housing (which is right to bring up) but when the presenter said (mischievously) that 5 out of 7 homes would go to immigrants, she magically U-turned and said there was plenty of housing. Plainly, that isn’t true.

I understand the arguments put forward by a few people on the need to end certain practices for house building corporations. Ending those practices would help with house building. However, the simple equation here is that (in my mind) we’ve hit a critical mass where there’s just too much demand for housing because we have too many people. 300k houses built per year when your net migration is 2 to 3 times higher than that means your not putting a dent in it.

You ducked the simple question of how much net migration becomes unsustainable. Hypothetically, would 1m net migration be too much? 1.5m? 2m? Heck, why not 3m!?

Immigration is overall a net benefit for the country up to a certain point, it’s the simple adage that too much of something becomes bad for you.

Ive said multiple times immigration should be lower. It’s just boring when every topic ends up in someone ranting about it. You don’t make decisions on numbers based on housing policy but on social cohesion and market needs.

 

[wingy]

Exactly, if net migration was 0, the government would only address the housing deficit at the end of the parliament (1.5m homes). As it happens, the Government forecasts our population will grow by 2.5m people, something doesn’t add up. Two important things to note here; 1) the 300k target has never been met and 2) government forecasting for migration has consistently underestimated actual migration.

So why do I bring it up? It’s something that people on the left just do not want to address at all. In a recent Sky interview, Angela Rayner banged on about lack of social housing (which is right to bring up) but when the presenter said (mischievously) that 5 out of 7 homes would go to immigrants, she magically U-turned and said there was plenty of housing. Plainly, that isn’t true.

I understand the arguments put forward by a few people on the need to end certain practices for house building corporations. Ending those practices would help with house building. However, the simple equation here is that (in my mind) we’ve hit a critical mass where there’s just too much demand for housing because we have too many people. 300k houses built per year when your net migration is 2 to 3 times higher than that means your not putting a dent in it.

You ducked the simple question of how much net migration becomes unsustainable. Hypothetically, would 1m net migration be too much? 1.5m? 2m? Heck, why not 3m!?

Immigration is overall a net benefit for the country up to a certain point, it’s the simple adage that too much of something becomes bad for you.

Where's your stat 5-7new home's will go to immigrant's, they're getting in with too much stash if that's the case?

 

[shmmeee]

Where's your stat 5-7new home's will go to immigrant's, they're getting in with too much stash if that's the case?

They won’t. There’s an average of 3 people to an immigrant household, you can’t just subtract immigration figures off new houses built figures. And even if it was true that’s a case for building more not not building more in the hope raising house prices for everyone discourages immigration.

 

[wingy]

They won’t. There’s an average of 3 people to an immigrant household, you can’t just subtract immigration figures off new houses built figures. And even if it was true that’s a case for building more not not building more in the hope raising house prices for everyone discourages immigration.

Well that's my thinking on it must a sky il inaccuracy,the rest of the housing stock possibly.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Ive said multiple times immigration should be lower. It’s just boring when every topic ends up in someone ranting about it. You don’t make decisions on numbers based on housing policy but on social cohesion and market needs.

It’s not a rant, it’s pointing out that the housing policies of this government and the last are not fit for purpose.

Frankly, it’s an issue that permeates over a lot of policy areas which why it gets spoken about a lot. That, and the electorate has consistently voted to reduce numbers and the exact opposite has happened.

 

[rob9872]

Why do you keep banging on about immigration? We need more houses even if it was zero.

Which economics text book told you increasing demand helps with supply?

These are your two consecutive contradictory replies to @Mucca Mad Boys

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Where's your stat 5-7new home's will go to immigrant's, they're getting in with too much stash if that's the case?

It’s what the presenter asked of Angela Rayner and it was a mischievous question to ask. Nonetheless, the fact Rayner went from saying there’s not enough social housing to ‘there’s plenty of houses’ in a matter of seconds is amusing, but baffling. It demonstrated just how uncomfortable Labour, and arguably how ill-equipped they are on the issue.

There is currently a 1.5m housing deficit, the government’s target is to build as many houses. The government forecasts, assuming they’re accurate, is that the population will grow by 2.5m (mostly net migration) so you’re back square one. On net migration, the government forecasts have been unreliable because they underestimate the actual net migration rate. If the numbers are higher than 500k per year, which is a ‘low’ figure, then your demand for housing and public services naturally increases.

 

[shmmeee]

These are your two consecutive contradictory replies to @Mucca Mad Boys

Immigration has happened. If you want to reduce it, fine, though I’m not sure you’ll get it to zero or that a majority of the country will be with you. That doesn’t change the fact we need a better system to build houses quickly where they are needed.

 

[shmmeee]

It’s not a rant, it’s pointing out that the housing policies of this government and the last are not fit for purpose.

Frankly, it’s an issue that permeates over a lot of policy areas which why it gets spoken about a lot. That, and the electorate has consistently voted to reduce numbers and the exact opposite has happened.

Not nearly as much as you’d hope. Yes immigration needs control. That doesn’t make every other policy moot.

 

[rob9872]

Not nearly as much as you’d hope. Yes immigration needs control. That doesn’t make every other policy moot.

Nobody said it did, you're arguing with yourself now to keep it going. All I pointed out was that immigration increased demand on an already limited availability and you tried to be smart to him about which Economics paper he was quoting and completely contradicting your previous post. It's not internet point wars. I have no skin in this, stick to the facts.

*edit, apologies I missed a post, I thought that was a response to mine.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Not nearly as much as you’d hope. Yes immigration needs control. That doesn’t make every other policy moot.

What is the primary issue driving housing shortages? It’s not planning reform, it’s not corporate greed. The primary and most fundamental issue is that as a country, our population is growing too rapidly to keep up with the necessary infrastructure demands.

Immigration has happened. If you want to reduce it, fine, though I’m not sure you’ll get it to zero or that a majority of the country will be with you. That doesn’t change the fact we need a better system to build houses quickly where they are needed.

Most of the country backs reducing immigration sharply probably in around 100k that Cameron promised. There just hasn’t been the political will to actually make the difficult choices and electorate no longer believed the Tories could be trusted on the issue.

I hope Labour gets a handle on things because if they fail, how long would it take for us to have our own ‘National Front’ movement. That’s something I’m desperate to avoid.

 

[MalcSB]

You keep banging on about this but don’t seem to know the details. There was a report that stated a fully clean energy system could reduce bills by £300 on average. Obviously we do not have a clean energy system, Labours pledge was to have one by 2030. There was never a pledge to immediately reduce energy bills by £300 no matter how much you pretend there was for outrage.

I haven’t banged on about this for ages. Labour must have done an unusually effective job of getting this in to people’s mind and memory, and then when it is raised they don’t seem to make any attempt to set the record straight.

They could deliver a reduction in bills. Stopping energy companies charging based on the most expensive means of production would be a start.

A lot of this sort of thing was in Corbyns plans. I dunno man. I don’t get the uk energy market at all, I asked ChatGPT to explain it to me the other day and came out none the wiser.

Generally though councils have no powers to raise taxes beyond limited council tax rises. 2% (which is below inflation recently) before you need a referendum.

As with transport it would really help if they could do stuff like this. There’s been attempts to force developers to do things but there’s always pushback that it’ll make housing more expensive so we can’t do it.

whats really worrying is that AI is planned to have a huge role in the NHS, reporting on diagnostic tests and assisting diagnoses. Let’s hope the clinical staff AI is supposed to help do come out the wiser.

 

[wingy]

I haven’t banged on about this for ages. Labour must have done an unusually effective job of getting this in to people’s mind and memory, and then when it is raised they don’t seem to make any attempt to set the record straight.

They could deliver a reduction in bills. Stopping energy companies charging based on the most expensive means of production would be a start.

whats really worrying is that AI is planned to have a huge role in the NHS, reporting on diagnostic tests and assisting diagnoses. Let’s hope the clinical staff AI is supposed to help do come out the wiser.

And not excuses, I'm sceptical