ABSTRACT
Analysis of the structure of owner-occupied housing provision in the previous chapters makes it possible now to examine recent trends in housing policy. There are two related but distinct questions to be considered, pertaining to the present situation and to future possibilities. The first, about the present, is why has owner occupation in its existing form come to dominate the housing policy of the state? As chapter 1 pointed out, part of this domination is actually a paralysation of policy initiatives: a fear by successive governments of undertaking any fundamental reform that includes owner occupation because of the perceived threat of a political backlash. This fear paradoxically has led to a depoliti - cization of housing issues by closing offdebate on the central question of the nature of owner occupation . Political dispute, for example, may rage between the Conservative and Labour parties over other housing tenures, but it is all remarkably abstract and contradictory, and hence politically marginalized, because policies towards other tenures are not integrated with reform programmes embracing owner occupation. Political stalemate consequently has led to political inaction.
