Since the last election, housing has featured as one of the top policy stories from both opposition parties and the Government. And when the new cabinet arrived, in the summer of 2016, they were clear that housing would be a number one priority, promising a new housing white paper.
The budgets in 2015 and 2016 from the old Conservative cabinet passed incentive after incentive for first time buyers – from Help to Buy and Lifetime ISAs to Starter Homes – and a new scheme called ‘taking the home out of inheritance tax’, as well as legislation intended to rein in landlords’ profits. That came in the form of a reduction in the level of mortgage finance tax relief for wealthier landlords, changes to the wear and tear allowance and Capital Gains tax allowance being cut for financial investments, but not residential property gains. So it was no surprise that the first new cabinet budget in November 2016 focused in on housing.
Policies from banning letting fees to help ‘JAMs’ (those ‘just about managing’) through to providing £2.3 billion for a new Housing Infrastructure Fund to help support the construction of 100,000 new homes and further funds for 40,000 affordable homes, showed this cabinet was going to do everything it could to adjust the supply of property in England.
