On home ownership, the Conservative manifesto doubles down on demand-side measures – Help to Buy and stamp duty cuts. These help some first-time buyers to get on the ladder so improve the picture in the short term, but without sufficient housing supply they usually boost prices in the long run. ²⁷ Hammond G, Help to Buy has pushed up house prices in England, says report, Financial Times, 10 January 2022, www.ft.com/content/19236eef-abed-4401-a6b1-25c1035ab095

The core question is whether a Conservative government will really tackle England’s chronic housing shortage. On this the manifesto sets an ambitious target – promising 1.6m new homes in England in the next parliament. This means building on average 320,000 homes a year: double the projected rate for 2024-25. ²⁸ Buckle C and Williams E, Housing Completions Forecast for England, Savills, 7 May 2024, www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/229130/359081-0

The strategy is clear enough: a fast-track planning route to concentrate development on brownfield sites in England’s 20 largest cities, and a “cast iron” commitment not to touch the green belt. But there are no guarantees that enough brownfield land will come through the planning system, and there is nothing to suggest from the manifesto that the new fast-track planning route will have any teeth.  

Successive governments have set national housing targets that have fallen by the wayside without enough “sticks” requiring local planning authorities to implement them. If most, or all, local authorities retain all their veto powers, it is hard to see how a returned Conservative government could guarantee that enough planning permissions get granted to build 1.6 million houses in five years.