Neither party is serious enough about housing

All major parties have set lofty house building targets in their manifestos, but plans to actually achieve them are light on detail. The fact is, there’s no shortage of ideas about how to tackle the big challenges facing Britain, what’s lacking is the political will, says Sam Bidwell

It’s election season and so, like Regency debutantes presenting themselves to high society, political parties have unveiled their manifestos. Unfortunately, this year’s offerings were more akin to Anne of Cleves than Penelope Featherington – appealing in theory, but rather disappointing up close.

While there was plenty on offer for pensioners, younger voters will have been hoping to see plans to bring down housing costs, provide greater economic opportunity, and make it easier to start a family. Instead, all of the major parties are guilty of manifesto-by-aspiration – there’s plenty of rhetoric here about where the parties ultimately hope to end up, but very few clear roadmaps on how to get there.

Take housing for example. The lofty targets set by all of the major parties are a step in the right direction, but plans on how to achieve those targets were light on detail. It was encouraging to see Labour commit to targeted action against nimby councils, including those which refuse to build on the greenbelt – but precisely when, why, and how a Labour government would intervene was left to the imagination. Despite talking tough on nimbyism, Labour’s ‘Plan To Change Britain’ explicitly commits to “[ensuring] local communities continue to shape housebuilding” and “preserving the greenbelt”.

The Tories, meanwhile, should be commended for their plans to abolish nutrient neutrality rules and extend ‘full expensing’ to brownfield development. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to see how a few regulatory tweaks and a handful of new urban development corporations can deliver the 1.6m new homes that the party plans to build over the course of the next Parliament. The truth is, fiddling at the margins simply isn’t enough.

The big structural changes that this country needs – whether on planning, on public services, or on migration – are complex and multifaceted. To return once again to our housing crisis, the underlying issue is our broken planning system, which gives existing property owners a veto over new developments while restricting where new homes can be built, regardless of consumer demand. This is a big, systemic challenge; if we want to deliver real change for working-age people, technical tweaks and eye-catching rhetoric simply won’t cut the mustard.

Fortunately, as the Adam Smith Institute’s new ‘Nothing New Under The Sun’ paper demonstrates, there are already plenty of bold ideas for sweeping reform available to politicians. Whether it’s Singapore-style medical savings accounts, Australian-style student loan repayments, or Swiss-style education funding, there’s no shortage of exemplary models to draw on. For our part, the ASI has been working to develop ambitious policy solutions to Britain’s structural problems for almost half a century.

Our fundamental issue is not a lack of ideas, but an absence of political will. When it comes time to put these ideas into practice, politicians are too often sidelined by well-resourced vested interests, who apply enormous lobbying power to ensure that the status quo is maintained. If it’s not lobbyists in the way, then it’s obstructionist Whitehall bureaucrats. Bold reforms also risk alienating voters – why undertake sweeping changes when you might get punished at the ballot box? For our political class, the incentives all point squarely towards inaction and obfuscation.

My message to young voters is this: at this election, do not give up your vote cheaply. The day-to-day issues that we face – soaring housing costs, stagnant wages, poor-value education – are directly downstream of the big structural challenges that our politicians are so scared to grapple with. Unless and until they can demonstrate that they have a clear plan to do so, they do not deserve your support.

Sam Bidwell is director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute