Grant Shapps confuses shortage of homes with shortage of 'affordable' homes

Grant Shapps writing in the Guardian (http://bit.ly/6rEvY1) has come up with a rather interesting new angle for making his case on why the Conservative Party is looking to bring in measures to address what her refers to as the ‘Britain's acute housing shortage’. Cleverly, he tries to tie the issue in with the apparent rise in fertility induced twin births.

According to figures released by Shelter (http://bit.ly/76L28) high housing costs are forcing couples to delay starting a family. Shapps argues that this has a knock on effect with fertility given the late age at which some women look to take the decision to begin to start a family.

There may be some truth in this, but where Shapps argument falls over is when in the article he jumps from the focus of the problem of the lack of affordable property to talk about making it easier for ‘first time buyers’. These are two completely different issues and require different policy decisions.

Confusing the two issues is surprising for someone who carries the title of ‘shadow housing minister’. Moreover where in the article is mention of the underlying economic factors of lack of credit and rising unemployment, and of how these are impacting on house prices and the supply of housing. One would expect any new government to be focusing on these major issues and detailing its policy intentions. Instead we have Mr. Shapps banging on about how policy measure on stamp duty and home information packs will help.

Talking about the steps the Conservative Party will take Mr. Shapps says:

‘there are practical steps which can be taken immediately and – if we win the election – one of the first things we will do is to exclude nearly all first-time buyers from paying any stamp duty at all. Next we'll scrap the pointless, but expensive, Home Information Packs and then we'll encourage more homes to be built with our pledge to match-fund the council tax received when an area builds more homes’.

I am not sure how a stamp duty exclusion and the removal of a £200 HIP (that will be transferred to the legal costs and probably lead to the increase of the legal costs) will help create more affordable homes for all couples. It just does not make sense and smacks of a class related policy decision. Stamp duty and the costs of moving only become relevant to a home buyer when they are able to put an offer in on a property that they can afford.

Perhaps those middle class homeowners who have money saved to bridge the large LTV on mortgages, who have an impeccable credit rating and who are both working in secure jobs may have some benefit from these small incentives, but it is incredulous of Mr. Shapps to argue, even with the support of some cuddly words about fertility, that this is all going to lead to a resolution of the problem we have in building and providing more affordable housing to all ‘first time buyer’ irrespective of class or wealth.