Damaging embryonic recovery would be an own goal
The Government must not do anything to destabilise the fragile recovery in the housing market in next week’s Budget, HBF warns today. The economic benefits and significant number of jobs created by increasing new home building will contribute to the wider economic recovery.
The Government must:
Urgently implement its proposed Local Authority financial incentives for house building as part of a robust transition plan for the move to an incentives-based planning system; Maintain funding for Kickstart, which has been so vital in maintaining housing delivery. Every £1 of public money invested generates £3 of private sector expenditure; Retain HomeBuy Direct for beleaguered first-time buyers, whose number have been significantly cut by the ongoing mortgage famine.
It must not:
Introduce VAT on new homes, which would decimate sales and reduce house building still further - resulting in a net revenue loss for the public sector.
(View the full HBF submission)
Speaking today, Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the HBF said;
“This is a critical budget for the home building industry. House building is vital to the economy and a key provider of jobs and there are clear benefits from measures to nurture the embryonic recovery. We already have a housing shortage approaching a million and are building less than any time since 1923. The Chancellor must be careful not to do anything to exacerbate the already acute housing crisis and risk hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
Every home built creates 1.5 full-time jobs plus up to four times that number in the supply chain. Increasing output by 100,000 would generate up to 750,000 real jobs.
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For media enquiries, or to arrange an interview, please contact Steve Turner on 020 7960 1606 / 07919 307 760 or steve.turner@hbf.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
1. The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the representative body of the home building industry in England and Wales. The HBF’s 300 member firms account for some 80% of all new homes built in England and Wales in any one year, and include companies of all sizes, ranging from multi-national, household names through regionally based businesses to small local companies: www.hbf.co.uk