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Social housing: Targets hit by Stormont budget challenges

Social housing: Targets hit by Stormont budget challenges

BBC News02-06-2025
Stormont's budget will only fund work on about 1,000 new social houses this year, far short of the Northern Ireland Executive's target.The Programme for Government committed to starting work on at least 5,850 new build social homes by 2027.That equates to about 2,000 new starts per year which would be a big step up compared to the delivery rate of recent years.However, on the basis of the current budget the number of homes started this year will be lower than the 1,504 started last year.
Figures published last month show that in the first quarter of this year 49,083 households in Northern Ireland were on a social housing waiting list.
The Department for Communities, which is the main funder for social housing, has allocated £63m to social housing.It has a total capital budget of about £270m but most of that is already committed to existing projects.The department can bid for additional money through the year in budget reallocation exercises, known as monitoring rounds.A monitoring round is due to be held this month but there is no certainty about how much money will be available or how it will be prioritised.The department would need an additional £62m to keep it on track to hit the Programme for Government target.
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We're delulu if we think new words should be resisted
We're delulu if we think new words should be resisted

Times

time26 minutes ago

  • Times

We're delulu if we think new words should be resisted

Times readers are doubtless better informed than me, but I'd not heard till yesterday the words (or as linguists say, lexemes) delulu or tradwife. These mean, roughly and respectively, 'willingly credulous' and 'woman who conforms, often volubly, to a traditional gender role'. They're included this week, like some 6,000 other words or phrases, in the Cambridge Dictionary for the first time. Perhaps you, and almost certainly I, will find scant use for them but they're real words. Their lexicographical recognition is not a fad. Nor does it evince a decline in linguistic standards. Rather, it shows the vibrancy of English usage and imaginativeness of English speakers. Not everyone agrees that lexical change is benign. An ostensibly lighthearted Channel 5 News debate about new dictionary entries in 2013 dwelt on twerking. Shown a video of the singer Miley Cyrus twerking, Nevile Gwynne (billed as an English language expert and author of the bestselling Gwynne's Grammar) described the inclusion of the word in the dictionary as 'deplorable, degenerate and deeply shocking'. Less colourfully, the journalist and historian Simon Heffer, a longstanding friendly antagonist of mine in the language wars, recognises that new words continually enter the language yet complains when dictionary compilers have 'surrendered to usage'. This is all immoderately misguided. Dictionaries record usage so we can learn the semantics, etymology and history of any given word. Sometimes these usages are slang, being the currency of particular demographic groups (especially but not only young people). I want to know what they mean; a dictionary that shuns them won't help me. Moreover, these new words are almost always nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. Other lexical categories, including prepositions, determinatives, and subordinators, almost never expand their membership. New words are coined all the time, yet the grammar of English changes only slowly. We have no problem understanding each other. Jonathan Swift, a stickler for correctness, complained when mob entered common usage, for it was, he objected, a crude abbreviation of the noun phrase mobile vulgus. Well, so much for that. Where new words serve a need, they're retained. Perhaps delulu or skibidi (another new entry in the Cambridge Dictionary, with several divergent meanings) will become swiftly obsolete. But there's no sense in regretting new words if, like selfie or catfishing or woke, they take hold. In every generation there are complaints that lexical and sometimes grammatical innovation is 'bad English'. Such ululations are always wrong, and always will be.

The UK's least affordable cities to live revealed as renters hand over more than a THIRD of their wages to landlords every month
The UK's least affordable cities to live revealed as renters hand over more than a THIRD of their wages to landlords every month

Daily Mail​

time28 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

The UK's least affordable cities to live revealed as renters hand over more than a THIRD of their wages to landlords every month

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Other notably unaffordable London boroughs included Westminster (55. 8 per cent), Wandsworth (54 per cent), and Camden (51.7 per cent). All of the 32 council areas across London have been above the 30 per cent affordability threshold for eight of the nine financial years ending 2016 to 2024. The picture looked similarly bleak for prospective renters in large cities such as Bristol, Bath and Brighton. In Bristol, renters were forking out 44.6 per cent of their income on rent each month, while in Bath and North East Somerset tenants were paying up to 42.7 per cent and in the popular seaside hub of Brighton this figure stood at 42.6 per cent. Meanwhile, those in popular commuter towns such as Sevenoaks and Watford have also seen their average rent rise above the 30 per cent threshold. Monthly rents across England averaged at £1,232, compared with £3,396 of monthly household incomes, representing a stark difference. In other areas of the UK, rental affordability seemed to be slightly less of a distant dream, with rents found to be below the 30 per cent threshold in Wales and Northern Ireland last year. Indeed, affordability increased in Wales, from 26.3 per cent of an average renter's income in 2023 to 25.9 per cent in 2024. In Northern Ireland, rental prices remained relatively unchanged, having increased slightly from 25.1 per cent to 25.3 per cent in the span of a year. were relatively flat with the ratio ticking up to 25.3% from 25.1%. Affordability also improved in the North East, North West, East Midlands and South East. The North East of England was found to be England's most affordable region, with average rents at £641 per month, amounting to 19.8 per cent of income. Explaining the findings, Sarah Coles, head of personal finance for Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'Renters faced a horrible squeeze on their incomes, and there's every sign it has got worse since. 'Landlords are continuing to sell up - concerned about higher costs from more regulation and more tax. 'It means more tenants chasing dwindling numbers of properties, so rents are continuing to rise.' Ms Coles added that any wage increases have been 'consistently outpaced' by a growth in the private rental market. 'At the same time, although wages have risen impressively, they have been consistently outpaced by private rental increases.' Meanwhile, Joseph Elliott, lead analyst at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said the data indicates an urgent need for the government to 'tackle unaffordable rents, frozen housing support, and a chronic shortage of social housing.' He told The Guardian: 'High rents are locking people out of their homes and driving poverty and homelessness.' Labour's Renters' Rights Bill, set to become law next year, plans to prohibit landlords from relisting a property with higher rent until at least six months after tenants have moved out - where they have ended a tenancy in order to sell a property. The Government previously said the end of a private rental contract is 'one of the leading causes of homelessness'. But Labour's homelessness minister was forced to resign earlier this month after she was accused of 'staggering hypocrisy' amid claims she ejected tenants from one of her homes, before putting it back on the market for an extra £700 a month rent. Rushanara Ali, who had championed the bill, which is currently going through Parliament, hiked rent on a property she owns by hundreds of pounds just weeks after the previous tenants' contract ended. Ms Ali, 50, has repeatedly cast herself as a voice for hard-up tenants, and spoke out against private renters 'being exploited and discriminated against'. Her actions would have been illegal under this proposed law. The new ONS figures also come amid a rise in the number of Gen z students giving up the chaotic joys of student digs at university to instead live with their mum and dad due to rising rent costs. Nearly a third of 18-year-old applicants in the UK for the academic year 2024-25 planned to stay at home, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) said earlier this month. This some 30 per cent figure is more than double that seen around 20 years ago, the Times reports - and also the highest recorded in this same timeframe. In 2007, only 14 per cent of teens said they would not be moving out during their studies - and even more recently, in 2015, this figure had only risen to 21 per cent. Stay-at-home student living started to peak sharply after the Covid pandemic, which saw families get used to rubbing along together at home during lockdowns. It came after a similar rise after the 2008 financial crash, after which family budgets suddenly became tight. Passing on student accommodation is particularly common in London, where rents are famously high, and Scotland, where students go tuition fee-free. Meanwhile, applicants in Wales, the south east and throughout the south west seem largely to stick with a traditional student room. The most common reasons mentioned for living with the parents were saving money (64 per cent) and being near family (46 per cent), as per a survey of 1,000 UK students by Leeds Beckett University. More than half (53 per cent), meanwhile, said it motivated them to consistently attend classes - perhaps with mum and dad there to keep them in line. Ucas chief executive Jo Saxton pointed out some students stay at home as it is close to the best course or university for them or to caring and family responsibilities. But the former school leader emphasised, generally speaking: 'More needs to be done to ensure the cost of living doesn't become a limit on young people's ambition.'

Homeowners could pay new property tax instead of stamp duty
Homeowners could pay new property tax instead of stamp duty

Times

time28 minutes ago

  • Times

Homeowners could pay new property tax instead of stamp duty

Homeowners with properties worth more than £500,000 could have to pay annual property taxes under radical plans to replace stamp duty. The Treasury is reportedly considering a proportional property tax in the budget this autumn, according to The Guardian. Rather than paying stamp duty (which ranges from 2 per cent on the purchase price between £125,000 and £250,000, through to 12 per cent on the portion of the price above £1.5 million) anyone buying a home worth more than £500,000 would face an annual tax. For years there have been calls to overhaul stamp duty, which raised £13.8 billion for the Treasury in the 2024-25 tax year but has been criticised for putting homeowners off moving. There are no firm details to the proposal, but it was reported that the Treasury was looking at suggestions from the centre-right think tank Onward, which would involve homeowners with properties worth more than £500,000 paying a 0.54 per cent annual tax on any value above £500,000. Professor Tim Leunig from the London School of Economics, who came up with the proposals last August, said: 'The way Britain taxes households is both impractical and unfair. Stamp duty raises transaction costs, preventing people from moving for new job opportunities, and undermines growth.' Any home worth more than £1 million would pay 0.81 per cent on the portion of its value over that threshold. Onward's proposals were that the new tax would not be applied retrospectively but would be paid by anyone who bought a home after it was introduced. The 5 per cent stamp duty surcharge for additional homes would remain and those owners would not pay annual levies. Leunig also proposed scrapping council tax and replacing it with a 0.44 per cent annual property tax levied by local authorities on house value between £800 and £500,000 (a maximum of £2,196 a year). Then you would pay 0.54 per cent on the portion above £500,000 to the government, instead of stamp duty. Someone with a £650,000 home would pay £3,006 a year — 0.44 per cent of £499,200 (the maximum £2,196) to their council and then another £810 a year to the government. • Read more money advice and tips on investing from our experts Treasury officials are reportedly considering a local property tax 'in the medium term' according to the Guardian, while replacing stamp duty could come earlier. The campaign group Fairer Share is calling for the abolition of stamp duty and council tax and for them to be replaced with a flat 0.48 per cent annual property tax. Andrew Dixon from Fairer Share said the reported plans would be a 'step in the right direction'. 'We look forward to working closely with the government to deliver long-overdue reform — creating a modern property tax system that supports local services, reflects real property values, and shares the burden more fairly across homeowners,' he said. The Times reported in May that 83 per cent of homeowners in England would pay less under a 0.48 per cent annual property tax than they did under the council tax system. The biggest losers would be those in London and the south east according to the estate agency Hamptons. House prices in those areas have gone up the most since April 1991, when council tax bands were set based on property values. Dixon said: 'By taxing property transactions, stamp duty discourages homeowners from moving — be it an older couple downsizing or a growing family upsizing. Removing it would lead to a more effective use of housing.' Some 85 per cent of homeowners in England and Wales were 'under-occupiers' with one or more spare bedrooms, according to a survey of more than 4,300 by Barclays. Of those, 73 per cent were over 45, and 37 per cent were over 65. The proportion of homebuyers who were 45 or older has fallen from 45 per cent in the 2015-16 tax year to 39 per cent in 2023-24, according to the estate agency Savills. Some 41 per cent of 2,000 homeowners aged over 55 polled by the estate agency Jackson-Stops said they would downsize within two years if stamp duty was reduced or removed. David Fell from Hamptons said: 'Who is better off will come down to how closely the government chooses to follow any recommendations. But I think in response to the general principle, the shift would probably cut the cost of buying the most expensive homes, but add to the annual cost of ownership, particularly given the artificially low levels of council tax charged by many places that have the most expensive house prices. 'The impact of a change to the system would probably depend on the level at which the rates were set, and the length of time it takes for the higher ownership charges to outweigh existing stamp duty and council tax bills.' The Treasury said it did not comment on speculation about the budget.

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