Pushing for more affordable home ownership

Over the past 20 years, rates of home ownership have declined in England. For many, the prospect of owning a home is no more than a pipe dream. This isn’t right. All those who want to own a home should, with hard work, be able to afford to do so – and my Select Committee agrees.

This week, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee have released a report into the “Affordability of Home Ownership”, calling on the government to introduce a raft of measures to help people get on the property ladder.

No silver bullet exists but the government can apply a range of supply and demand-side measures to improve the situation.

We have called on the government too:

• Reform Stamp Duty Land Tax, so that it does not continue to slow the whole housing market and damage the economy.
• Make it easier to bring empty and under-occupied homes back into residential use.
• Provide more support for small and medium sized housebuilders to be able to access available finance to provide affordable housing.

Successive governments have tried to failed to tackle the problem. There are no easy solutions, but we believe this report sets out measures which will help alleviate some of the challenges. You can read our report in full below.

Read the report

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5902/cmselect/cmcomloc/41/report.html