Britain's Housing Crisis
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The prime minister, Theresa May bemoaned the state of the housing sector in a speech earlier this year. She said the national housing crisis was one of the biggest barriers to social mobility in Britain today.
She acknowledged that property prices have put home ownership out of reach for millions of people. And she pointed the finger at the failure to build enough of the right homes, as she put it, in the right places. But is the failure to build at the core of the problem? Or are other factors at play?
Would excluding foreign ownership make a difference, or making more land available on which to build? And are we too obsessed with the idea of owning our own house?
This week in The Briefing Room we ask why we can't fix the housing crisis?
CONTRIBUTORS
Dan Tomlinson, research analyst at The Resolution Foundation think tank
Colin Peacock, Radio New Zealand
Christine Whitehead, Professor of Housing at the London School of Economics
Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter
Andrew Whitaker of the Home Builders Federation.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Oronovich. Inside our virtual space, you and I get |
| 0:09.8 | briefed together on the big questions of the day by people who know what they're talking about. |
| 0:14.8 | And if it works for you, and especially if it doesn't and you know how it could, tell us what you |
| 0:19.3 | think by writing a review or rating us on iTunes or your podcast provider. |
| 0:23.8 | This week, we're talking about the housing crisis in Britain. Did you know that back in the 1980s, |
| 0:29.7 | it took a typical family three years to save enough money to put down on a deposit for a house? |
| 0:34.8 | And today, that same family would have to save for 19 years. While they're |
| 0:40.0 | doing that, they're paying an eye-watering proportion of their income in rent. The crisis is new, |
| 0:46.0 | but shows no sign of going away. So this week we're asking, why can't we fix it? And if you enjoy |
| 0:51.7 | this podcast, you might enjoy other editions of the briefing room. |
| 0:54.7 | There are plenty for you to listen to in our archive. |
| 1:05.8 | We cannot bring about the kind of society I want to see, unless we tackle one of the biggest barriers to social mobility we face today, the national housing crisis. |
| 1:15.6 | Crisis. Talk about housing in Britain today and everyone uses the same word. Why? |
| 1:23.6 | In much of the country, housing is so unaffordable that millions of people who would reasonably expect to buy their own home |
| 1:30.3 | are unable to do so. |
| 1:32.3 | Others are struggling even to find somewhere to rent. |
| 1:36.3 | And how is this supposed to have happened? |
| 1:38.3 | For decades, this country has failed to build enough of the right homes in the right places. |
| 1:44.8 | But is the Prime Minister right? Is the reason for this crisis simply the failure to build |
| 1:50.0 | enough homes for purchase, or are the reasons more complex and the solution's quite difficult? |
| 1:56.1 | Step inside the briefing room to find out. |
| 2:02.4 | But first, what do we mean by a housing crisis in the first place? |
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