Sunak and Khan’s brittle housing debate
31 July 2023
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Economics
Energy and Environment
Andy Mayer quoted by The Scottish Daily Express
31 July 2023
Housing and Planning
Kristian Niemietz writes for The TImes
IEA Head of Political Economy Kristian Niemietz has written for The Times covering how Rishi Sunak and Sadiq Khan fail to realise that housing targets are no magic bullet.
Kristian wrote:
“If we had a more market-based planning system, there would be no need for housing targets, for the same reason that there is no need for brewing targets or baking targets.
“But in a system that gives so much veto power to professional obstructionists (in a country full of them), mandatory housing targets were a necessary corrective.
“Today, there is not a single London borough left where the average house price is less than ten times the annual gross salary, and there are a dozen boroughs where that ratio is more than 15. Khan’s housebuilding figures are a bit better than those of his predecessors Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone, but they are nowhere near enough to reverse that trend.”
You can read the full article here.
Kristian wrote:
“If we had a more market-based planning system, there would be no need for housing targets, for the same reason that there is no need for brewing targets or baking targets.
“But in a system that gives so much veto power to professional obstructionists (in a country full of them), mandatory housing targets were a necessary corrective.
“Today, there is not a single London borough left where the average house price is less than ten times the annual gross salary, and there are a dozen boroughs where that ratio is more than 15. Khan’s housebuilding figures are a bit better than those of his predecessors Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone, but they are nowhere near enough to reverse that trend.”
You can read the full article here.
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