CML News & Views: what can housing policy hope to achieve?
Thursday, 8 September 2011
9:39 AM
This autumn, the government is expected to publish its long-awaited housing strategy. It will do so against the backdrop of a National Housing Federation report predicting home-ownership in decline for another decade. How does that sit alongside the government’s hope of delivering an “age of aspiration”? Today’s issue of CML News & Views looks at long-term aspirations to home-ownership in the UK and considers if – and how – they might be fulfilled.
Meanwhile, journalists writing about the mortgage market have been summoning up the spectre of Big Brother. (And, no, we’re not talking about latest antics of Sally Bercow.) A number of commentators criticised lenders for carrying out “secret” and “scary” checks on borrowers who might be on the edge of financial difficulty. So, are lenders acting in a sinister fashion – or taking responsible steps to help borrowers with payment problems at the earliest possible opportunity?
To see all the stories in full, go to the latest issue of CML News & Views.
Bernard Clarke
Council of Mortgage Lenders
tel: 0207 438 8923
website: www.cml.org.uk
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Prime minister David Cameron summarises the new housing strategy in his speech to the CBI conference:
Governments always resort to yet another first-time buyer initiative that risks stoking people's expectations of homeownership.
People want to know why they can't raise their children in the kind of place they were raised.
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls comments on the government's housing policy announced today on the Today programme:
We must provide those who lay their lives on the line to protect us with decent housing.
Gordon Brown has promised to make housing a national priority and build three million new homes by 2020.
Falling home ownership rates and a 20% increase in rents over the next five years are likely without government action on housing, a report has warned.
Liberal Democrat communities and local government spokesman Andrew Stunell calls on the government to make housing truly affordable. Gordon Brown must focus on social rented housing as much as home-ownership, he warns, or risk a rise in repossessions and homelessness.
Britain's struggling small businesses will be able to secure cheaper bank lending as a result of the government's credit easing initiative unveiled today - but business leaders are warning it is not a "panacea" to the UK's bank lending problem.
Rural England is being threatened by a brutal combination of high house prices and low wages.
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