How the government can build more homes
Think tank: Institute for Government
Author(s): Sophie Metcalfe
August 30, 2024
This report from UK think tank the Institute for Government examines the history of why successive governments have found it difficult to deliver on housebuilding pledges.
Fixing the housing crisis has featured in every recent UK government’s list of top priorities: this report examines why so many have found it difficult to deliver on such ambitions, and how persistent barriers can be overcome. England has a chronic housing shortage. Like many before it, the newly installed Labour government has promised to tackle this problem, and to “get Britain building”. It has set an ambitious target to build 1.5 million new homes in five years, through a combination of planning reform, new towns and the “biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation”. Now it faces the task of meeting this target; doing so will require a rate of completing new homes not seen since the 1960s.
This report examines the history of why successive governments have found it difficult to deliver on housebuilding pledges. It identifies the persistent barriers to progress, and sets out 10 principles that Starmer’s government, and future ones, should adopt to underpin a better approach to navigating them.
