Sunak’s budget was great for estate agents, but it did nothing for generation rent | Polly Toynbee
Extending the stamp duty holiday and guaranteeing 95% mortgages will make housing less affordable for many
At the wicked heart of both household and national finances is housing. It is the great social divide, the chasm between the perilously insecure and the asset-rich. Housing burns away private renters’ ability to live on their pay, while every year the wealth of homeowners swells. Members of the lucky boomer generation who bought their houses in the 1970s have reaped huge unearned profits. Yet Conservative chancellors keep throwing petrol on the flames.
The new help-to-buy scheme and stamp duty holiday extension announced in Wednesday’s budget offer feelgood comforts to prospective Conservative homeowners and will warm the cockles of estate agents’ hearts. But both worsen the distortions in our economy. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, appears to have learned nothing from how such schemes push up house prices. In fact, this is quite deliberate. Of course he knows the effects of George Osborne’s flagship help-to-buy scheme, but pushing up prices is what both homeowners and estate agents want. The concerns of private renters fall below the Tory polling radar.
