James Browne

Did right-to-buy cause Britain’s housing crisis? Forty-five years since council tenants were encouraged to join the ‘property-owning democracy’, has Margaret Thatcher’s flagship scheme backfired? Melissa York meets right-to-buy’s winners and losers

Interesting question in @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/.... Here's some insights from our research with @jrf-uk.bsky.social 👇

Housing affordability since 1979: Determinants and solutions Rents in the private and social rented sectors are close to their highest for decades as a share of tenants’ incomes. This report examines why, and the policy options that could help tenants stay aflo...

As the article concludes, the problem wasn't necessarily right to buy in itself but the failure to sufficiently replenish the social housing stock after properties had been sold. Our paper is here if you want to find out more: www.jrf.org.uk/housing/hous...

However, there is too little today. Many more low-income families with kids and disabled people are in the private rented sector than in 1979, which isn't the right solution for these groups. Reversing this trend would require another 700,000 social properties

Overall, falls in housing subsidies can explain all of the reduction in housing affordability for renters, and the decline in the social housing stock was a key part of that. But there was probably 'too much' social housing in 1979 - many higher-income households also benefited from sub-market rents

The fall in the size of the social rented sector is one of the key reasons behind the reduction in housing subsidies since 1979. Subsidies through sub-market rents in the social sector have fallen from 9% to 4% of total housing costs. Housing benefits have ⬆️ but not enough to offset this.

Did right-to-buy cause Britain’s housing crisis? Forty-five years since council tenants were encouraged to join the ‘property-owning democracy’, has Margaret Thatcher’s flagship scheme backfired? Melissa York meets right-to-buy’s winners and losers

Interesting question in @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/.... Here's some insights from our research with @jrf-uk.bsky.social 👇

Chaotic US tariff policy will affect the UK, but shouldn't mean we take our eye off the ball when it comes to domestic reform. A clear strategy like this has the potential to win back the confidence of business and kickstart investment and growth

3️⃣ Reduce compliance costs for business through the use of technology: making tax digital, e-invoicing and a digital ID for business. These will also allow support to be better targeted on growing businesses to replace blanket support for small businesses

2️⃣ Remove tax reliefs that are not achieving their objectives of boosting growth. There are £42 billion of tax reliefs to support business with this objective, but many are not achieving their objectives

Using the OBR's methodology for assessing the growth impacts of full expensing for plant and machinery, we estimate that this would boost GDP by 0.75% - roughly double the impact of the government's flagship planning reforms

Our strategy has three key points:
1️⃣ Make the corporation tax and business rates systems as growth-friendly as possible by introducing full cost recovery for all investments and replacing business rates with a land value tax

A Pro-Growth Roadmap for Business-Tax Reform A Pro-Growth Roadmap for Business-Tax Reform

My new paper on business tax reform with
Isabel Atkinson and Tom Smith is out today. We set out a blueprint for pro-growth reform and tech-enabled simplification institute.global/insights/eco...