George Osborne: Housing crisis will still be here in 10 years’ time

George Osborne’s evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee was dispiriting for a number of reasons. The first was that he told the peers that the chances are that politicians will still be struggling to ensure that housing supply keeps up with demand in 10 years’ time. He said:

‘I imagine if we were all assembled again in 10 years’ time we’d still be talking about the challenge of making sure that our housing supply kept up with housing demand and we’re all legislators here and we all have a responsibility to the next generation.’

Part of his point was that the housing crisis is so big that it would be foolish and rather grandiose for one Chancellor to think that five years' worth of policymaking would be enough to solve it.