Pearls will be clutched, inbreath gasps heard, as we finally agree with Polly Toynbee on something:
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that a shocking report on a Conservative flagship housing policy fell below the news radar. The Lords-built environment committee has revealed that all of the £29bn spent on the help-to-buy scheme has been wasted. The scheme gives subsidies for homeownership, but all they do is “inflate prices by more than their subsidy value”. They “do not provide good value for money”, which would be “better spent on increasing housing supply.”
Note that we don’t agree on “Right to Buy” but we do on help to. As we said back at the time actually:
The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) says the measures will increase demand for houses but not supply, and will only exaggerate existing competition.
The Institute warned of the consequences if the Government does not shake up planning laws to improve the supply and affordability of housing.
Well, quite, the correct action to a shortage of supply is not subsidy to demand. That’s somewhere between perverse and stupid.
Research director Sam Bowman said: "It is crazy for the Government to stoke demand even more without addressing supply and claim that this will help the housing market.
"Making taxpayer-subsidised handouts to homebuyers will only drive further house prices up, risking a bubble, improving access for a select few but making housing even more unaffordable for most people.
"On the other hand, radical liberalisation of the planning system has the potential to drive massive economic growth, drastically reduce housing costs for the badly-off, and give millions more a chance to own property of their own. "
Quite so, the correct answer today is as it was back then. Blow up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Properly blow up. Bang. Kablooie.
While we doubt that Polly will agree upon the solution still, prepare the Fatted Calf and all that. Even if it does take 9 years to catch up with us Polly’s agreement on the - to put it only politely - insanity of the subsidy plan is welcome. Hopefully we can reach agreement on the solution in less than a decade.