IEA Director of Public Policy and Communications Matthew Lesh has been quoted in Guido Fawkes commenting on the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) new report on the UK’s housing market.

Matthew said:

“The CMA has got three essential facts right about Britain’s housing crisis. The first is that there have been ‘too few houses are being built, especially in the areas in which they are most needed, which is having a negative effect on affordability’. The second is that the ‘the nature and operation of the planning systems is a key driver of the under-delivery of new housing’. Finally, they have rejected the idea that ‘land banking’ by major house builders has led to an undersupply. The simple truth is that there’s a housing crisis because of a multigenerational state failure to allow enough homes to be built.”

But the report didn’t get everything right:

“They have asserted that the private sector is incapable of delivering enough homes without a large council building programme based on ‘looking at the history of this market’. The CMA have their facts embarrassingly wrong. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, private house builders in Britain delivered plentiful housing without state-support. The same applies today in places like Texas that have more liberal planning laws. All Britain needs to do to get enough housing is for the government to get out of the way.”

Read the full article here.