Autumn Budget 2017: who are the winners and losers?

Views on the gags, alfa? Did they work?

On-topic – I’m quite happy about this new railcard, I *think* this might mean a daily or weekly ticket will mean I don’t need to buy a season ticket – I now need to do the maths and decide whether or not I renew my season ticket before the January fare hikes.

@ldeitz, Lauren, wouldn’t you rather Which? was located near where you can afford to live, so the need for expensive commuting were reduced? (“you” is not personal, neither is “Which?”).

The problem with that idea, Malcolm, is that if all employers started to relocate to the country, the cities would eventually become giant parks and the areas to which the employers had relocated, giant cities.

I suspect a completely new approach is needed, which might include greater use of VR and tele-management, innovative transport systems, such as monorails, eradication of all oil-based fuel-burning engines and the possible re-purposing of the fairground roller coaster to a city transport infrastructure. That last could provide note merely a very cheap and well-proven system of transport but also a great fun way of getting to work.

But all employers would not. Reducing commuting would relieve the pressure on housing in over-populated areas and reduce the need for inefficient peak-time transport, as well as reducing traffic jams – if done sensibly and if we could only think long-term instead of up to 5 year chunks.

I see no reason why the majority of the Which? operation (just as an instance close to our hearts) needs to occupy expensive premises in a polluted city, at greater cost to its employees and members. At least Bristol (near Devon 🙂 ) was a bit of an improvement. Much of Yorkshire / Lancashire / Wales, as examples, have a lot to offer.

But you cannot be sure all employers would not, can you? The same a arguments Which? might deploy to argue against such a move could easily be deployed by others. There’s no logical reason at all why Parliament has to be in London, for instance, and if they moved to – say, Cornwall, then many other businesses might follow suit.

The point is that although I have argued in the past for Which? to move to a cheaper area in the UK if it began in earnest a very real change could occur, with land values, pollution, traffic jams and so on all rising in the new areas to meet the needs of the businesses.

You make a fair point @malcolm-r, the truth is that I don’t mind commuting into London – it’s what I’ve always done, both for university and my working career. Over the years I’ve seen it get increasingly more expensive and service standards not really get any better. With both myself and my other half commuting into London, it’s getting to the point that we could start driving… but then the traffic is pretty bad. The railcard will be helpful, but it’s not going to resolve the problems with my train line.

Ian, I don’t see a credible argument that “everyone would move”. They would not. London would become a pleasanter place to live and work and were a redistribution of employment ever to gain any momentum, a natural balance would come in to play.

@ldeitz. Lauren, I used to drive into a London suburb to work and the road ran alongside a railway line that my (then) future wife used to also commute. We both lived (separately) in the pleasant countryside outside the Metrolops. On a surprising number of occasions we used to see each other – and wave – partly because my piccalilli yellow Ford Cortina was a little conspicuous. I must say, it was the only highlight on my journey – jams, dirty, a waste of time, expensive in fuel and sometimes demeanour, and now I regret the number of people I must have poisoned. Hers was expensive, dirty, but at least she could read – in the days when the only mobile telephones were those being delivered in GPO vans, and computers were bigger than the carriage – that was the only activity, other than sociable conversation.

Malcolm, simply because you can’t ‘see a credible argument’ doesn’t mean that’s not what will happen. And natural balance, it can be argued, is precisely what’s caused London to become as heaving as it now is.

Interesting, that I have been given a thumbs down for pointing out the disrespect of some MPs when another is giving a speech, and being allowed to continue to get away with it. The Speaker of the House is supposed to be impartial which he very clearly wasn’t.

The budget was the usual smoke and mirrors, with very little given away. Lauren might benefit from the new railcard, and first time buyers have been given a short-term helping hand.

A crack-down on plastics is welcome and we will have to wait to see how that plays out.

I don’t agree with free car tax for electric cars, they still use roads, and should at least pay something towards their upkeep.

Overall, and without doing any sums whatsoever, it seemed to me the Chancellor announced a lot more spending without saying where this extra money was coming from.

alfa, whether MPs play to the audience when they are on tv I do not know. However, whenever I watch Prime Ministers Questions they behave in an appalling way for “grown ups”. What they think they achieve by shouting down their opponents beats me – very occasionally the same happens in Convos but our “speakers” generally tackle it fairly.

However, this bad behaviour does not happen in televised committee sessions, so perhaps it is simply all for show. It does seem a shame that our elected politicians of whatever party try to epitomise a “divided” country, and do not visibly combine forces to find best solutions to issues instead of seemingly picking constant arguments and displaying negativity. Would you run a commercial organisation thus?

I also support the council tax hike on long-term empty properties in principle but there seem to be a number of loose ends, so it looked like window dressing to me.

I was concerned to see that it will be discretionary for councils to impose it and at what level. Some might slap a 100% excess on empty properties whether that is justified or not to loosen up the local property market while others might not, or might opt for a lower percentage.

I can’t trust all local authorities to exercise this power responsibly and equitably and some could just use it as a money-maker. I assume there will be exemptions for properties undergoing renovation, and those vacant after the death or other special circumstance of the owner. I thought councils already had some powers to deal with ‘nuisance’ empty properties and wonder what this measure will achieve. It could cause more complications than it is worth. The way to get more houses on the market is to build more houses; I suspect that ’empty properties’ is at best a marginal factor in most areas. Any sensible owner not wanting to occupy them would put them on the rental market – is that not incentive enough?

An example where such a penalty would not work fairly is when a property is bought to demolish it and develop the site, maybe into a better property or into multiple properties. It can take a long time to acquire the site, draw up acceptable plans and negotiate agreement with the local council. So there does need to be discretion, but sensibly applied.

Nimbyism is the biggest problem in countryside housing, which local planning authorities reinforce.

What’s your definition of empty?

Empty for 3,6,9,10 months a year? That’s a holiday home that brings much needed demand to countryside retail, food, and fam outlets.

It’s an interesting question, Martin, and each local council will presumably come up with its own arrangements. I think “empty” means vacant with no contents of any kind and not readily habitable.

I think the empty homes problem is mainly in urban areas where owners might be keeping property vacant hoping it will rise in value; alternatively they might not have the means to carry out improvement works and can’t afford to sell the property because its condition is substandard. In the first scenario I would have thought letting would have been worthwhile as producing an income and ensuring the property is looked after. In the second example I think the owner should just put the property up for auction and be shot of it unless they think they are going to come into a windfall in the foreseeable future. Paying double council tax on an empty property would be madness just adding to the existing liabilities.

Nimbyism wouldn’t be such a problem if developers had more consideration for existing home owners in the area.

But they cram as many soulless properties as they possibly can onto a piece of land, and where you previously had trees as an outlook, you can end up with an ugly wall staring at you in the face.

I came across an interesting article on the BBC News website giving a lot of information on why there are so many empty properties and the phenomenon of ‘buy-to-leave’ used by investors in new-build properties. The article is two years old now but still relevant –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34930602

It says that “Despite widespread anxiety about a shortage of housing supply, there are 610,123 empty homes in England, according to the government. Of these, 205,821 have been unoccupied for six months or more, the official definition of “long-term” emptiness“.

It also comments on the difficulties many people have in funding the renovation of dilapidated property and the time it can sometimes take after the death of an owner to settle their estate and eventually dispose of the property but during which time it continues to deteriorate.

It might be Hammond’s last budget so he was determined to go out on a low.

Agreed. Apart from electricians and gas engineers for whom certain qualifications are compulsory most tradespeople have picked up their skills at their early customers’ expense. I find plumbers the most difficult to be entirely satisfied with and would never recommend one.

Whilst a developer I offered all unskilled staff one day a week to train for a trade. There were no takers.

Most British don’t want to work on a building site. That’s why so many are immigrant. Best rethink Brexit?

Was that paid or unpaid training, and was it at a training college or on-site?

Local authorities used to give a discount on the council tax bill for people who owned a second home but this has gradually faded away to a mere 10% or none at all in many areas. The discount was in recognition that the second home was occupied for only a small percentage of the year so didn’t impose much of a burden on the public services like education, social services, and other services. But second-home owners still enjoy all the other benefits of highway maintenance, planning and environmental protection, refuse collection and disposal, street lighting. and street cleansing, etc, and I no longer see the need for a discount. However, whether there is a case for a surcharge I would doubt. It probably would not deter many second-home owners but could reduce the amount of money they might be inclined to spend in the local community. I don’t see the point of alienating second-home owners unless the uptake of second homes is leading to a genuine shortage of affordable properties for local people which is the case in a number of areas, particularly near the coast. Local authorities in such areas should use the higher revenues they are attracting to take action to provide sites for new housing aimed at local people. It is unlikely that a small house on an estate will appeal to the second-home owner who is looking for a former rectory or a quaint fisherman’s cottage [the cottage being quaint that is, not the fisherman]. Policy also has to recognise that many second-home owners have rescued dilapidated properties that were generally unwanted and neglected for years.

Certain areas have become unnaturally trendy and ridiculously expensive as a result of the second home phenomenon and imposing controls might just drive the prices up even further as they are only going to be affordable for the most wealthy owners. The character of some communities has changed out of all recognition through the weekly influx of second-homers but in many ways that has improved the prosperity of the area. It’s a tricky issue and not unconnected with overtones of envy in my opinion.

I do so agree .Second home ownership can sometimes destroy small, picturesque communities. Cornwall and Snowdonia are good examples where second home owners often move in in such numbers, outbidding locals, and either rent out their properties as holiday lets or leave them vacant for much of the year, either of which inevitably changes the nature of a tiny community.

Nothing to do with envy, but a real concern that local folk simply can’t afford the house prices when this happens.

Agreed, Ian. It’s not the local residents who show envy but the rabid commentators who feel that second homes should be universally banned, or taxed off the scale, as though owning a second property is somehow immoral. Owning a yacht or a second car does not seem to attract the same degree of opprobrium.

My parents had a second home for a few years. It was a large bungalow in a rural and rather uninspiring part of Essex a few miles back from the coast. I think they doubled the income of the local hardware store proprietor, provided lots of work for local builders, and spent lots of money in the over-priced village store. We used to have to go there every fortnight whether it was convenient or not just to mow the lawns and keep the place in good order so as children we hardly went anywhere else for a holiday. A twenty minute drive to Frinton was as good as we could get. Now that, due to road and vehicle improvements, the same travelling time will take you to North Norfolk the impact of second-home ownership has changed dramatically and every one feels it is one of life’s rights of passage, although I somehow doubt the next generation will be able to experience it so easily.

At the moment there is no threat to raise the council tax on second homes by 100% so councils will have to work harder to contain any problems they give rise to.

Can you give examples Martin?