Food poverty-the way out

[reohn2]

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[reohn2]

If second home users get it on their second home then that's just daft.

I've read and agreed with the comments on better insulation but a solution to massive bills is needed now, not some time in the future.

This money should be the first step and a proper scheme to insulate homes should be devised.

It was pointed out to me that in rented property there is no incentive to insulate the home as the landlord doesn't gain from lower energy bills.
What about the government paying for all homes to be insulated regardless of their occupant.

It would cost £ billions but cutting energy use would lessen the need to build more and more generating capacity so make a cost saving.

You're forgetting we now live under a populist government that operates reactively rather than proactively to everything and anything.
Breaking laws it set for the country as well as international law and agreements,whilst continually lying through it's teeth daily in an effort to cover up it's own lies,lack of ideas and total inept incompetence,all to save the liar in chief so he can pretend to know what he's doing whilst his evil party profit from others misery.

[reohn2]

Apparently second homes get the £400 too! Time to sort that out.

Yes. AIUI the Chancellor is claiming this morning that this wasn't deliberate but that they couldn't work out how to avoid it in practice with the current systems...

Jonathan

First thought.... .....who owns all those second homes.....

[reohn2]

better insulation but a solution to massive bills is needed now,

Well, let's think - which is more awkward - high bills and financial difficulty - or no planet to live on? Crikey that's a toughy - give me a while to think that one through, will you...

The relevant difference with climate change is rate of change, not magnitude, the slower rate of change makes it easier to procrastinate with climate change, even if the ultimate consequences are greater. As I said above, I don't think climate change will ever get fixed, because it will always be tomorrow's problem, and not today's. Credit crunch, Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, Food prices, there's always something....

I think you're right,and as time passes the poor will become evermore destitute as the rich become richer and "insulate" themselves against it.
On the current tragectory we've seen the apex and are now on a downward slide it's speed is currently glacial but it's slowly gathering momentum,worst of all governments across the world are AFAICS only tinkering around the edges to look like they're doing something.

[Pebble]

Apparently second homes get the £400 too! Time to sort that out.

Yes. AIUI the Chancellor is claiming this morning that this wasn't deliberate but that they couldn't work out how to avoid it in practice with the current systems...

Jonathan

Yeah right,we'll believe him though thousands wouldn't!

Based on half a million second homes out of a stock of 25 million. Divvying up the second home £400 would only mean an extra £8 for everyone else, so maybe not worth the effort of identifying second homes.

Mind you, I'm no fan of the second home concept - I would be compiling a list and levying eye watering taxes on any second homes - there is no place for them in our overcrowded island. Local people are being forced out of seaside villages due to ridiculous property prices, I know villages in Northumberland where over 50% of properties are now second homes or holiday lets.


(although they could threaten to fine any second home owner accepting the £400 energy grant £40,000) that would bring a lot of the money back in for little effort.

[reohn2]

Yes. AIUI the Chancellor is claiming this morning that this wasn't deliberate but that they couldn't work out how to avoid it in practice with the current systems...

Jonathan

Yeah right,we'll believe him though thousands wouldn't!

Based on half a million second homes out of a stock of 25 million. Divvying up the second home £400 would only mean an extra £8 for everyone else, so maybe not worth the effort of identifying second homes.

Mind you, I'm no fan of the second home concept - I would be compiling a list and levying eye watering taxes on any second homes - there is no place for them in our overcrowded island. Local people are being forced out of seaside villages due to ridiculous property prices, I know villages in Northumberland where over 50% of properties are now second homes or holiday lets.


(although they could threaten to fine any second home owner accepting the £400 energy grant £40,000) that would bring a lot of the money back in for little effort.

Whilst I agree with you,"divvying up" the second home payments isn't the point,it's that people who own second homes getting a payment they don't need or should be allowed to have.

[pwa]

What is the definition of a "second home"? How about landlords who own several homes and rent them out? Are they all "second homes"? Or landlords who rent out homes in holiday hotspots at astronomical sums per week? Or are "second homes" just those inhabited by the owner on a part-time basis, their main residence being elsewhere?

[simonineaston]

In some respects, there will never be a great time to tackle climate chaos - no pop. is going to welcome the side-effects that come with serious & effective actions that address say reliance on fossil fuels. We've seen that, with the response to the Insulate Britain protesters when furious drivers persue their right to drive the kids to school in thirsty BMW suvs...
What is so disappointing and depressing about the way the gov reacted to the recent fossil fuel emergency resulting from the Ukraine war and other supply price fluctuations, is that it provided an excellent spring board for grasping the nettle. They failed to take the opportunity and that suggests that they will continue to do so, year on year. Instead of getting proper stuck into say insulation, they've simply arranged to help folks carry on buying the same levels of energy that we've always done.
We know that elected gov.s find it hard to think beyond the next election but if we don't start to make difficult choices now, exactly when are we going to make changes that matter? Perhaps one day, if we're lucky enough to survive, we'll look back at Johnson's administration and shudder, recalling the many ways that the bloke and his cronies have let us all down!

[reohn2]

What is the definition of a "second home"? How about landlords who own several homes and rent them out? Are they all "second homes"? Or landlords who rent out homes in holiday hotspots at astronomical sums per week? Or are "second homes" just those inhabited by the owner on a part-time basis, their main residence being elsewhere?

In the first instance it should be the tenant who should receive the help,in the second instance there should be no payment made,in fact quite the oposite such owners should be taxed out of existence in favour of local people ownership.

[al_yrpal]

Welcome to UKSSR!

Al

[simonineaston]

I've a deal of sympathy with folks who are priced out of home ownership in the county they grew up in... the empty "second home" must feel like a permanent reminder. Periodically, the haves will turn up, behaving in the way that haves often do and then disappear again, to leave the property cold, empty and continuing to remind those left behind that they still can't afford it...

screenshot of graffitti on second home

[Cugel]

Welcome to UKSSR!

Al

No laughing matter that Russian oligarchs, many armatures of Putin, have turned London into Londongrad! Gaw, they even own the football teams, not to mention swathes of essential infrastructure. They've also inserted themselves into the highest echelons of our government.

As to the UK-anything .... well, it ain't too united just now, eh? One large factor in the disunity has been the ability of Putin's various agents and bots to easily sway the minds of silly folk with, for example, the painting of the EU as a bogey. A DisEU is a handy thing if you have ambitions to invade and conquer all about you.

How does it it feel to be one of Putin's useful idiots?

*********

But this thread is now wandering in a direction that's always been of great interest to me - the root cause of much of our economic and thus social ills: the property laws.

Personally I believe that the notion of private property, although fraught with dangers like any metaphysical exudation of the human mind (consider, for example, the effects of "God" and "money") is a very useful and beneficial notion when rendered as a set of laws interested in conservation and improvement rather than in making a fast buck by raping & pillaging the bejasus out of it. A proud home owner can do a lot to improve the area & community lived in generally, as well as constructing a legacy for another proud home owner to inherit and perhaps improve even more. Small businesses (and large ones) can flourish if they own property on which to do so, without some rentier milking their every effort to the point at which they fail.

The problems seem to come when the notion of property is suborned and aligned with the notion of "free capital"; the notion that speculators and rentiers should be allowed to annex as much property as they like and then exploit it and anyone else who genuinely needs it to live - to abide in or to run a business in. Landlords of every size & shape sit on their greedy behinds doing nothing - often not even maintaining their property - milking the work and efforts of those unlucky enough to have to rent because they cannot afford to buy.

Various governments have used property ownership to build a privileged class of large-scale property owners, who wield enormous power and influence because they have the means to effectively suborn, bribe, purchase or otherwise control the law makers. Our property laws are the root cause of a vast sea of social ills and cultural rots.

********
What's the alternative? Well, it wouldn't take much to tweak the property laws to spread property ownership to far more people; and to prevent huge agglomerations of property being used to buy power and influence solely to obtain even more property. And to prevent its degradation in the name of vast profits from extractions, monocultures and other despoliation.

There are various moves afoot in Wales and Scotland to begin the process, in the form of arrangements to alter property-related laws to reduce phenomena such as villages full of largely empty homes, with house prices way beyond anyone but someone earning a fortune in The City or similar. There are moves afoot to force large landlords in Scotland to stop the degradation of their land and to make it available for more social goods.

Personally I believe such laws could go a lot further without being too radical or revolutionary. We have many examples of far better laws about property from past times, such as an increase in inheritance tax to force large estates to sell-off some of their vast holding; and the changes mentioned above to stop the hollowing out of many small communities being destroyed by so-called second home owners. (So-called as they certainly haven't made their second houses any kind of home, merely created an empty building for sporadic use and market speculation).

There's a lot to be said for being a conservative - a real one, I mean, not a Torytrot intent on destroying everything just to make more with a hedge-fund or similar. We have many good examples of better laws, institutions and other cultural artefacts to call on from our past. Why not use them? We could start with a fair rents law and a provision of means to councils to build & rent council houses in the very successful manner of post WWII.

Cugel

[reohn2]

Welcome to UKSSR!

Al

Despotism flourishes in UK politics as it's people suffer the consequences.....

[pwa]

What is the definition of a "second home"? How about landlords who own several homes and rent them out? Are they all "second homes"? Or landlords who rent out homes in holiday hotspots at astronomical sums per week? Or are "second homes" just those inhabited by the owner on a part-time basis, their main residence being elsewhere?

In the first instance it should be the tenant who should receive the help,in the second instance there should be no payment made,in fact quite the oposite such owners should be taxed out of existence in favour of local people ownership.

Regarding holiday homes, I was listening to someone on the radio a few days ago who may be facing punitive taxes in Wales on his holiday lets as part of measures to combat homes being bought up to rent out, but his own lets are converted farmyard buildings on his own farm and were never real homes in the first place. He converted them to diversify his income stream. There are fine distinctions to be made here.

[pete75]

Lets be clear - the person getting the money is the person paying the utility bills. It's not a cash gift rather a rebate on the bill i.e. the bill will be reduced by 400 quid. In rented properties the tenant is almost always the bill payer so will get the reduction. If someone is paying the energy bill on more than one domestic property they will get the discount on each bill. That's the way universal, non means-tested benefits work.

There's been a lot of publicity about second home owners avoiding council tax by registering the properties for business rates, the business being renting it out when they're not using. The rebate is on bills for domestic premises only, so those with the property registered for business rates won't get it.