SUMMARY
The number of homes built in England has lagged behind demand for
housing for decades.
The effects of this long-running shortfall in housing reveal
themselves in the growing barriers people
face in getting on the property ladder, or simply
affording their rent.
The human costs are emphasised by the growing problem of
homelessness, with the number of families
living in temporary accommodation rising from 50,000
in 2011–12 to 72,000 in 2015–16. Almost
120,000 children in England live in temporary accommodation
today.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (the
Department) has an ambition to deliver 1
million new homes over the five years of this Parliament.
But despite acknowledging that the housing
market in England is “broken”, it remains
dependent on the existing market, which is
dominated by a handful of private developers, to
realise its ambition.
Even if this is achieved, the Department acknowledges that it
will not come close to meeting the actual
level of housing need, so problems of affordability
and homelessness are likely to persist for
years to come.
The Department’s lack of ambition on such a
fundamental issue is matched by a lack of information, in
particular on the impacts and value for
money of the roughly £21 billion the government
spends each year on housing benefit.
The Department has recently published a White
Paper outlining proposals for accelerating
housebuilding, and we look forward
to monitoring the development of its
programmes.
