Playing politics with the future

The chancellor left us in no doubt that he regards his Budget as one that “invests in the next generation” - mentioning it no fewer than 18 times in his speech.

Yet for all the talk of “acting now so the nation’s children don’t pay later”, there was no long-term thinking to genuinely make secure homes a reality. 

The new Lifetime ISA extends the principle of the Help to Buy ISA, giving a leg-up to under 40s already able to save. Meanwhile an unspecified scheme was mooted to explore “ways to extend homeownership” to social tenants who cannot afford to buy despite Right to Buy, Help to Buy and Starter Homes. How this can be done responsibly within tenants’ means in a way that satisfies lenders is unclear.

On the supply side, having stopped investing in building social and affordable rented homes, the chancellor has moved in on the fledgling Build to Rent market, applying a stamp duty increase to institutional investors and withholding capital gains tax reductions that will be enjoyed elsewhere from companies investing in residential property. We have yet to see how institutional investors will react.

In the pursuit of more homes for sale, there were announcements about planning reforms, releasing council and Network Rail land for homes, a £1.2bn Starter Homes Land Fund for councils to remediate brownfield land, and funding for private developers to build shared ownership. 

But so far none of this does enough to put the one million homes target within reach.

Meanwhile, rising rough sleeping has been making middle-class voters uncomfortable, putting government under increasing pressure.

So much so that, as we reported in January, they were considering a Wales-style duty on councils to prevent homelessness. 

Despite recent headlines about Osborne’s plans to “solve homelessness”, the duty did not materialise in the Budget: instead there was a £115m fund. The investment is welcome, but whether it makes up for recent cuts is debatable.

And it fails to recognise the scale of the problem, from rough sleeping to inappropriate and unsafe housing. 

The Budget doesn’t provide a sustainable solution for future generations.

It may, however, be enough to take rough sleeping out of the public gaze - important for a Budget delivered eight months to the day before the 50th anniversary of influential 1966 TV drama Cathy Come Home.