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The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves is being urged to look beyond housing as a self-contained issue, and adopt a strategic, pan-government approach.
Ahead of the Chancellor’s Budget next month, the Housing Commission – established by thinktank Radix Big Tent – has called for the establishment of a cross-departmental housing delivery unit. This forms a central element of its recommendations to the Treasury
According to the commission, such a unit would provide “better coordination” of housing delivery across government, something it says is “essential to engage key stakeholders such as the Bank of England and financial and utility regulators, and to address the UK’s housing ‘perma-crisis’”.
Meanwhile, it has also “doubled down” on previous recommendations, which it says have not yet been implemented by the government. These include encouraging Homes England to allocate more of its direct support to smaller providers who are able to deliver housing more quickly, as part of the strategy to diversify supply through SMEs.
It has also proposed that the sale of land to Registered Providers of social housing – where there is outline planning permission for the construction of affordable housing – is zero-rated.
The commission has also called for the end of current discrimination in the financial and planning systems in favour of home ownership over other forms of tenure, in particular, build-to-rent and the wider private rented sector, to broaden the housing mix and recognise the value of mixed-tenure communities.
Stamp duty relief has also been touted recently as a possible tax cut and the commission has suggested that introducing stamp duty relief for pensioners to stimulate the housing market and encourage “right-sizing” would unblock the market for buyers.
Alex Notay, Radix Big Tent Housing Commission’s chair and newly appointed chief executive of the Housing Forum, said: “There is no doubting the government’s commitment to building more homes and it has already put in place a number of important measures to make it easier to deliver these at pace and scale.
“Their policies to-date include a number of the commission’s 2024 proposals, for example streamlining the planning process, releasing metropolitan greenbelt and reforming the role of Homes England. However, the government must recognise the complex ecosystem of housing delivery needs stronger and better integrated policy and our Budget submission highlights opportunities here.”
The Housing Commission is a cross-industry, multi-disciplinary expert group set up in March 2024 by the Radix Big Tent thinktank to better understand the housing shortage and make recommendations for reform. It published its first report in October 2024.
This article was first published in Housing Digital.