In the mid-90s, you could save up a deposit for a house in a year; now it takes about a decade. That’s a really meaningful change. That’s a whole stage of your life where 30 years ago you might reasonably have expected to become a homeowner and now that is highly unlikely
In a room packed to overflowing, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) – CapX’s parent organisation – kicked off its event programme at this year’s Conservative Party Conference by talking with Katie Lam MP, her first proper sit-down interview since being appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Lam was blunt about the challenge of the UK’s housing crisis, her loathing for stamp duty – her ‘single most hated tax’ – and the challenges created by government adding extra regulatory costs onto housebuilding, making projects less viable and pushing up housing costs for everyone.
Robert Colvile, former Director of the CPS, led the conversation and they were joined by Andrew Asaam, Mortgage Director at Lloyds Banking Group, who stressed the fundamental affordability challenge caused by house prices rising twice as fast as salaries in the last 25 years, and warned in particular that youth ownership under 35 has ‘cratered’.
What to do about a challenge that goes to the heart of people’s life ambitions – and is vital to help people feel excited about the future and that they have a stake in society? Lam was upbeat about the challenge of seeing off the Nimby threat, which often sees Conservative supporters blocking new developments. She blamed that on a dysfunctional planning system, arguing that the right reforms, allowing people to build good homes in the places people want to live, wouldn’t face the same challenges.
She also saw little overlap with her opposite number on the Government benches, Angela Rayner – ‘it would be hard to think of two politicians more diametrically opposed’. She was sceptical of the Government’s new version of Help to Buy, warning of the risks of negative equity. More generally, Lam criticised a ratcheting approach to government that pushes up costs with red tape, then adds subsidies for buyers, calling it unaffordable and destructive of the price mechanism. ‘We have to start by stripping more things out rather than adding more things in.’
Lam was also scathing about Labour’s new plan to seize vacant properties after six months, pointing out that, in tandem with the Renters’ Rights Act, this created real challenges for landlords. Challenged on the fact that many of the ideas behind the Renters’ Rights Act started under the Conservatives, she responded, to applause: ‘I don’t care where it comes from. It’s got to go!’ This was not, sadly, a policy announcement.
Lam did however promise substantive policy announcements during conference, with a focus on where government is making things harder. Overnight, the party has announced plans to take £50,000 off the cost of building a house by slashing regulation, leaving the Aarhus Convention to stop vexatious judicial reviews, and cutting two quangos notorious for slowing down construction: the Environment Agency and Natural England. Will these plans be followed by root and branch planning reform designed to see off the Nimbys? We live in hope.
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