If we can get state spending under control and make key reforms to boost growth, a surge in living standards will follow. The headroom to start cutting taxes will then emerge giving young people yet more scope to save and invest.
The Conservative Party has always been fertile territory for special interest groups, but until this year, the property and housing sector has been largely neglected. That’s why we have launched the Conservative Housing and Development Network
The SNP/Green Bute House Agreement focused on attention-grabbing ideas like rent controls instead of real, lasting solutions. While these policies sound good, they have caused real problems in practice.
The UK’s terrible property market, and inelastic supply, does offer one nice opportunity for reform, because ultimately housing benefits don’t make housing more affordable, they just make landlords more money.
After all, this is the party of home ownership and housing has long been central to its electoral success
The Government’s proposals would shift the burden of responsibility from professional freeholders to tenants – all without doing any to reduce service charges.
The scandal of the local Labour MP’s behaviour as a landlord is just a symptom of wider failings.
Some interventions, such as tax breaks for landlords who sell to their tenants, are trifling; others, such as reviving the much-criticised Help to Buy scheme, are straightforwardly counterproductive.
In the vast majority of cases, booking on Airbnb offers positive experiences. But we also know that some areas have understandable concerns from the impacts of over-tourism.
Unless there is something uniquely flighty about English landlords, the international evidence does not give credence to MPs’ fears that dropping Section 21 is going to cause an exodus from the private rental sector.
Although containing some welcome improvements, the Levelling-Up Secretary’s legislation contains one glaring error: a ban on ‘no fault evictions’.
We need a comprehensive and coherent approach that proves we are serious about tackling the problems thousands of people are experiencing trying to find an affordable home.
The tough choices we are making, to lock up the worst offenders for longer and to rehabilitate the redeemable, are the right ones to protect the public in the long term.
All of the pieces of legislation announced by His Majesty today, including the Renters (Reform) and Victims and Prisoners Bills.
Families who rent from small landlords are not statistics. They are neighbours, friends, members of communities. Taxing and regulating responsible landlords out of the market is not just unfair, it is counterproductive.