"Phoenix prefab" by User Oosoom on en.wikipedia - Own photograph - Oosoom. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phoenix_prefab.jpg#/media/File:Phoenix_prefab.jpg
In 1894, Conservative MP Lord Francis Hervey made the case for the provision – at ratepayers’ expense – of decent housing for poor agricultural workers in Suffolk. Having explained the economic rationale for doing so – which was, as he pointed out, sufficient in itself – he went on to say, ‘but it is impossible to forget that we are in presence of other considerations, social and moral, which, though not susceptible of being gauged by money values, are intrinsically of still higher importance.’ Matching words with deeds, Lord Hervey oversaw the creation of England’s first rural council housing.
Lord Hervey would weep at the current Conservative government’s Housing & Planning Bill 2015, which reaches Report Stage in the Commons on 5th January. It tramples on social and moral considerations and is economically both damaging and ridiculous. There is no justification for it.
