Housing: Pensions and Deposits

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

On the question of the role of land in house prices going up, is not one of the requirements of a sensible policy that the land value increase does not all stay in the pockets of the people who are sitting on this land, which could be given planning permission? That would help the Exchequer in other aspects of public finance.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, as I said, I am not the Housing Minister, but I will say this. Clearly, we must be very careful about how we develop our policies in this area. The reality is that our schemes are working. We are building a record number of homes. The latest evaluation has found that there is no evidence of a significant impact on house prices overall. The Help to Buy scheme is a hugely important part of that. There is no question of us supporting any scheme that would mean excess profits in the wrong hands.