Big ideas

A radical new report out today challenges almost 40 years of orthodoxy about how we subsidise housing – and much more besides.

The think-tank Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says it’s time to reverse the shift from bricks and mortar to personal subsidies that began in the 1970s and get back to building homes rather than subsidising rents.

It’s far from the only big idea in the report, which is part of the IPPR’s fundamental review of housing policy, but it is the most eye-catching. In the current spending review period we are spending £94 billon on housing benefit but only £4.5 billion on building new affordable homes. Is there a better way?

Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing