Home truths: the only thing Labour is building is a bigger, more dysfunctional housing market | George Monbiot
forUilde child, construction. This is about the intellectual limit of the government’s housing strategy. Millions are not independent, so Let’s “bulldozer” Planning and building more homes. But it is not very simple.
Once anyone challenges politics, the government Nimby teaches them – The last of the crude interruptions that are going through a discussion on this issue: Nimbys versus yimbys. So before I go further, let me remember that I want to see a lot of new social meeting and sincerely Housing at reasonable prices Built as part of a huge program to solve The worst residential crisis From any rich country. I made similar calls for years, not the least in the report that I participated in composing to the Labor Party in 2019: Land for many. I oppose the current approach in favor of the Labor Party for a different reason. You will fail.
The construction plan depends on 1.5 million homes over five years on only only on Six house houses volumes. No other mechanism is widespread: the work of the work of the House Building Fund to stimulate only small and medium -sized home builders 12,000 homes. But the builders of size have an incentive to reduce construction on the “market absorption rate”: in other words, they will not scatter their profits by building enough homes to reduce the selling price. It also reduces the launch of homes at reasonable prices: they tend to promise them, then they boil their promises with development revenues. United NationsHouses are affordable for more profitable prices. The government has not suggested any sufficient measures to change these incentives.
Moreover, in the absence of policies to reduce the cost of housing, even if 1.5 meters of new homes are built in a magical way, this will not have a little effect on the main determinant about whether people are in a good place or not. One study indicates that building 300,000 homes annually in England for 20 years would reduce prices Only 10 %. That is, in a moderate phrase, a very ineffective way to solve the problem.
Why does the price not respond very? Because “effective demand” on housing (purchasing power) does not carry a little relationship between need. As a professor of economics and finance, Josh Ryan-Kulins, since 2016, notes that more homes have been bought as.Additional housing(The second homes, holiday homes, Airbnbs, buy to allow, and so on) from buyers for the first time. Nearly a million homes in England LeaveThe number of vacant properties has increased by 32 % since 2016. Government measures suggest this rarely touched the sides.
Many of those who buy the role of investment here are based abroad – and the buyers of foreign real estate alone have increased the prices of home in the United Kingdom 17 % since 1999. The financial installation of housing is a major driver to increase the five times since the 1980s. You cannot simultaneously make sure that housing remains a profitable investment and that everyone is well confined – however the government is seeking to do.
Yes, there is an urgent need for the additional offer. But there will be no significant change in the ability to withstand costs unless the request is also taken using tax systems and planning to suppress the demand from investors, and to make homes for buyers for the first time and social tenants. This would make homes for people with low income available more quickly, costly and efficiently than the new construction.
People find this difficult to believe, but there is a huge housing surplus in this country. We have a higher percentage of Bedrooms for residents From ever. The problem is that it is sadly settled: booming husbands and single people wandering in the palaces while families are crammed in small apartments. Most of the expansion of housing supplies in the United Kingdom since the 1980s has created an additional space For the wealthyInstead of new homes for those who need them. About 8.8 million homes in England Improper. There are already more than enough housing, With a wide marginTo meet everyone’s needs, if they are effective incentives redistribution It was created. But the government tells me that it does not have such a plan.
Among the causes of these caliphs, our comic property tax system: the council tax ranges are stuck in the levels of 1991, which means that there is now no relationship between the value of the property and the amount The occupiers must pay. For example, if taxes are imposed on all property by a percentage of their value, with discounts for poor and younger families, this will create a strong incentive for excess areas to reduce size, and to issue larger houses for those they need.
Moreover, without a capital profit tax on the value of the initial housing or rental controls, the housing is a bet in approximately one direction-a close guarantee to make money without effort. Rental controls are rejected by the ministers, who claim that they will be of the size of the sector. But experience in Other countries It suggests that this is a legend. Instead, as special lights ContinueShe has the government Frozen local housing allowanceEnsure that low -income people will More struggle To find a decent house. Many of the housing policy driven by interest in the poor.
Just as the uninterrupted it is the government’s belief that housing can be made more expensive by liberalizing the mortgage market. Only last week, in response to government pressure, the Financial Conduct Authority suggested that the mortgage rules be Reducing more bat To increase the ownership of the house and enhance growth. But if one of the assets is seduced money When the returns are guaranteed, the price will be Rise. Are the ministers very simple, or are they just demonstrating?
So what the government intends to do is leaving the healthy dysfunctional system while building more houses. a result? A larger functional system. Oh, enormous environmental damage. Again, as we may hope for the studied and effective policy, we hear raw statements and ignorance. For example, the Minister of Housing, Matthew Benikok, talks about targeting.Low -value rubber landRubing distortion is a sure sign of environmental illiteracy. It is a rare home with great environmental value, necessary for A wide range of dear typesLike Nightingales, Song Thrushes and Dormice. But the bulldozer policy requires bulldozers. I think these are smart people who pretend to be fools for political purposes.
The government housing policy creates the impression of work by tearing the countryside while, thanks to the permanent fear of disturbing strong economic interests, and failed to address the basic causes of the problem. The possible result is limited landscape, unparalleled residential need and high rents. If this was the case to destroy people’s belief in democracy and hand over the upcoming elections to the far right, it could barely do a better job.
