What do home Information packs, social housing and Grant Shapps have in common?

There is a simple and rather worrying connection. The policy developed and promoted by Grant Shapps on Social Housing and Home Information packs has no basis is rational thinking, and is policy that is solely driven by right winged and it must be said misplaced political ideology.

On the subject of HIPs, no weight is given to the benefit to consumer of delivery of legal information and documents at the beginning of the process, rather than weeks and often months later when the offer is communicated by the buyer. Nor is there any recognition of the lower cost of home moving the HIP has brought with it, along with the removal of that widely unwanted practice of speculative selling. The HIP has been proved to save the home owner around 1 million pounds per day in abortive costs.

A wealth of objective evidence has been delivered to Grant Shapps to show and demonstrate the advantages and benefit to the public of retaining and using the HIP to bring about badly needed reform to the home buying and selling process. Does Mr Shapps want to listen and engage with industry? – not he does not.

As with Social Housing, he has no interest other than taking steps to promote worrying Party line ideology.

No one is safe, not the private homeowner, who faces increased selling costs under a Tory administration if the HIP goes , nor the 8 million who live in social housing, and who according to an article in Today’s Guardian, appear to be heading for upheaval and higher rents.

Based on what is happening in the Tory run Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham, and despite cute PR and rhetoric emanating from Grant Shapps, there seems to be a real danger that the rights and interests of those living in social housing are being ignored in favour of a policy to actively reduce the stock of affordable housing, favouring instead luxury developments.

Commenting on the housing policies of these Conservative run Councils, the article by Andy Slaughter, reports:

‘It is not as if the record on low-cost home ownership is any good. This is not an attempt to help low-income families onto the property ladder or create mixed communities, as the Tory PR would have you believe. It is a straightforward act of gentrification, of "sweating the asset", as they put it, to replace low-density estates of people on low and middle-income with high-density luxury development, stopping for a little gerrymandering on the way.

Caught off-guard, the language the Tories use says it all. The minutes of their brainstorming meetings which I obtained last year include these gems: "knock it down and start again"; "it's hard to get rid of people" and "only a very few people need some form of physical social housing ... possibly less than 10% of national stock".

The problem with all of this is that is becoming contagious with the Article noting that other Conservative run Boroughs are adopting a similar policy. Where will it end and more importantly if the Conservatives become the next Government what will lies ahead for every council and social housing tenant?

The public needs to know the facts on all aspects of proposed Tory housing policy. Apart from repetitive statements to the effect that the HIP will go, and meaningless sound bites of what the Tories intend to do to help low income families onto the property ladder, there is little by way of substance in what Shapps says. The truth is the detail is not for public consumption, at least in the run up the election. This is a dangerous game for the Tories to play as they should not underestimate the intelligence of the voting electorate.