Resolution deposit windfall proposals: Half measures better than nothing, but we must tackle underlying problems in housing

Resolution Foundation package of proposals include a £10,000 windfall at 25, to be used to put down a deposit on a home, a housing policy that only works around current problems.

Last week, the Resolution Foundation proposed a package of measures to restore a sense of fairness in the social contract between those either side of the 'Generational Divide'. It contains some headline grabbing polict proposals.

Resolution's package of measures was headlined by a £10,000 windfall for all citizens at 25 - a policy once proposed by Thomas Paine as a universal inheritance. It was accompanied by a call for a rise in National Insurance payments by pensioners to raise funds for the NHS and reforming council tax.

The Resolution Foundation is a think tank, aiming to improve the standard of living of low income families. It's current chair is former Conservative Minister David Willetts and it's Director is Torsten Bell, a former advisor to Ed Miliband.

As a thinker, Willetts has been the quiet man behind the New Right and the turning of conservatism towards fiscal restraint,  outsourcing and privatisation, favouring markets, with a shell of traditonalism surrounding certain social liberalisms.

In essence: the dominant current within the broader theme of Neoliberalism in the West. And, it is important to note, the Third Way of New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

It's worth noting this because Resolution's proposals come off as very New Labour - seeking a neoliberal way around problems like inequality, accepting them as part of the system and turning them to an advantage, rather than actively fixing them.

Case in point. We live in a time in which house prices are high, prohibitively so, while job security and pay are low. A tax-funded windfall, to help young people put down deposits, would be welcomed. But it pastes over problems with redistribution.

That was New Labour's Third Way. From working tax credits to Private Finance Initiatives, Gordon Brown responded to an imbalanced economy and unequal accumulations of wealth, by taxing them to fund social programmes.

Now. This is not to discredit or tear down the work done by Brown. And yet, exploiting those who are exploiting our society, in order to repair the damage their exploitation does, is a maddening circle.

Laurie Macfarlane, economics editor at Open Democracy who has written extensively on the housing crisis, has taken the same view - casting doubt on the benefit of pouring money into the property market to keep it afloat, arguing that "the property ladder model... was a one-off that can't be repeated."

Even half measures and excuses are not to sniffed at. They could help a lot of people facing lean times. But we shouldn't bet the house on them. We can't keep looking to work arounds, avoiding fixing the underlying things that are actually wrong.

References

Kamal Ahmed's 'Tax on pensioners proposed to heal inter-generational divide'; on the BBC; 8 May 2018.

Ben Chu's 'This is why millenials deserve a £10,000 taxpayer-funded inheritance'; in The Independent; 8 May 2018.

Laurie Macfarlane's 'The property ladder model of wealth was a one-off that can't be repeated. It worked by creating huge windfall gains for some at the expense of others. Trying to keep the show on the road by giving young people £10k to plough into property will not help over the long term IMO'; from Twitter; 9 May 2018.