Finance (No. 2) Bill

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The Budget set out an ambitious plan to tackle the housing challenge—a plan that will raise housing supply by the end of this Parliament to its highest level since the 1970s. However, the Government also recognise that we need to act now to help young people who are trying to get on to the housing ladder. This Bill therefore introduces a permanent relief in stamp duty land tax for first-time buyers, which I will turn to shortly. Alongside that, I will also cover clauses 8 and 40, which respectively introduce an income tax exemption for accommodation payments made to members of the armed forces and make minor changes to the higher rates of stamp duty land tax.

Home ownership among young people has been falling. Today, the average house in London costs almost 12 times average earnings, nearly 10 times average earnings in the south-east and more than eight times average earnings in the east.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the only solution to the housing crisis is to build millions more houses, not to pump demand into the demand side, which just pushes up prices in the end?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We announced plans in the Budget along the exact lines that he has suggested in order to free up the supply side and to increase supply to 300,000 units by the mid-2020s. In the last 12 months, we have achieved 217,000 new builds, so we are on our way, although it will take time. He is quite right that the supply side matters.