It’s amazing the capacity some policy wonks have to identify a problem and then come up with a completely wrongheaded solution. So it is with the latest report from the Housing and Finance Institute. The authors insist that rather than cutting stamp duty, the Government should be subsidising people to buy houses. Their argument is […]
Recent data from the Office of National Statistics and HM Land registry show that house prices rose 3% in the year to May 2018, relative to a growth of 3.5 percent in the same period last year. This is the lowest annual rate of growth since 2013, attributed due to declining house prices in London. […]
Though the ongoing Brexit tussles in Parliament and Brussels have unsurprisingly created something of a policy vacuum, there is perhaps no greater crisis in contemporary British politics than housing. The extent of the problem is truly staggering. Since 1995, average house prices in the UK have increased by an astonishing 300 per cent – rising […]
If the Government ever wants to solve the housing crisis, they need to step up and dispel the Green Belt myth that has become so entrenched within the British psyche. The romanticised notion of a “green and pleasant land” is strangling our cities and preventing the much-needed supply of houses. That’s right. The time has […]
For some Conservatives, home ownership is a precondition for support for capitalism. But is that really the case? After all, you don’t need to own a farm or a factory to enjoy the benefits of their products. You can do very well in a fairly-organised modern economy with nothing more than human capital or a […]
So, you want to heal the generational divide? Thinktankers and policymakers have been out in force over the past few weeks throwing ideas around about how to shift some of the burden from the shoulders of my generation – the student loan generation, generation rent, “those entitled millennials”. The vast majority of those ideas are, […]
Using the long arm of the law to force-fill empty homes is getting very vogueish. From the far left to the Tory back benches everyone seems to be getting on board with the idea. The Government is legislating to permit greater tax surcharges on empty homes. The Resolution Foundation is arguing for more active steps […]
By anyone’s reckoning Britain faces a housing crisis. We simply do not have enough houses in the places that people want to work and live. Why is our planning system so broken? Well, folks, the clue is in the name: planning. We have tested to destruction the idea that “plan-led” economies ever work. We know […]
