The Budget offers no plan to fix the housing crisis – John Healey

John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, responding to the
Chancellor’s announcements on housing in the Budget, said:

“This is a ‘nothing has changed’ Budget from a Government with no
idea of the reality of people’s lives and no plan to improve them. This was
billed as the ‘housing budget’, but the announcements fall far short of a
proper plan to help fix the housing crisis. There’s zero chance that these
small-scale Budget changes will enable the country to build 300,000 new homes a
year.

“There is no extra Government investment in new affordable homes,
no action to help private renters with soaring costs, and just three
small-scale pilots to help the homeless.

“Cutting
stamp duty, without the significant increase in house-building that Labour
promised, will only drive up prices, rather than help the millions of young
people who want to buy a home of their own.

“After seven years of failure on housing, which has seen
homelessness double, home-ownership fall to a 30-year low and the lowest number
of new social rented homes since records began, the country needed much better
than this Budget offered.”