Singing from the same songbook – a cabal of free market obsessives

Anyone reading a newspaper, listening or watching the news or looking at social media posts would assume that with the dominance of reports from ‘think tanks' and lobbyists that the problem with housing in the UK or England is a lack of supply.  That’s the common refrain from a range of organisations, which lend credibility to the “we must build more houses” mantra. 

 

Although this mantra appears to be widely supported and seems to make sense, we have to recognise that these reports are produced by organisations using the same playbook, a cabal of free-market fanatics. 

 

They all believe in a market led housing sector

they are happy that dwellings are used for non-residential purposes whether as second homes or holiday lets;

they see housing as an investment;

lack of supply is the underlying cause of the housing crisis;

planning stops developers from building more dwellings;

objectors to more housing are just being selfish.

 

They all produce evidence of a housing crisis – high house prices, high rents, homelessness, poor quality housing, young people struggling to get on the property ‘ladder’, falling levels of home ownership, people on ‘waiting lists'.  There is little argument with the evidence produced. The problem is that the actual causes are not recognised and therefore the relevant solutions are not identified. 

 

They omit to mention for example

a housing surplus (England) of 1.5 million;

dwellings are used for second homes and holiday lets;

housing supply regularly outpaces household growth;

house price increases have been driven by low interest rates pushing up asset values and increases in earnings;

quantitative easing raised the value of assets,

cuts in support for those on low incomes;

market rents for both private and social housing;

a reduction in social housing;

tighter controls on lending reducing the options for young house buyers. 

 

Conclusion

The fact that so many organisations working on the same assumptions produce the same outcome should not come as a surprise. Neither should the fact that politicians follow the same path and conclude that more houses must be built.  The media simply follow and accept uncritically what they read.

To address housing problems means looking at the evidence and creating a suitable menu of policy options.  That is sadly lacking at present.

 

Pro-housing building organisations

Baxter, D and Murphy, L.,  November 2017, Priced out? Affordable housing in England,  Institute for Public Policy Research.

 

Roger Bootle, R., and Vitali, J., July 2024, ‘The UK’s Broken Housing Market Causes, Consequences and Cures', Policy Exchange.

 

Church of England and the Nationwide, 2024, 'Homes for All: A Vision for England’s Housing System. 

 

Competition and Markets Authority, 2024, House building market study – final report.

 

House Builders Federation, 2024, ‘BEYOND BARKER, A Two-Decade Review of England’s Housing Policies and Progress.' 

Langengen, T, Myers, J., Emerson, K.,  2024, ‘The Urgent Need to Build More Homes’, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

 

Morton and Dunkley, 2023, The Case for Housebuilding, Centre for Policy Studies.

  

Watling, S, Breach, A, February 2023, Centre for Cities, The house building crisis, The UK's 4 million missing homes.