Raising the Roof: How to Solve the United Kingdom's Housing Crisis

by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Radomir Tylecote, Stephen Ashmead, Calvin Chan, Ben Clements

Overview

Raising the Roof addresses one of the key issues of our era – the UK’s housing crisis. Housing costs in the United Kingdom are among the highest on the planet, with London virtually the most expensive major city in the world for renting or buying a home. At the core of this is one of the most centralised planning systems in the democratic world – a system that plainly doesn’t work. A system that has resulted in too few houses, which are too small, which people do not like and which are in the wrong places, a system that stifles movement and breeds Nimbyism. The IEA’s 2018 Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize, with a first prize of £50,000, sought free-market solutions to this complex and divisive problem. Here, Breakthrough Prize judge Jacob Rees-Mogg and IEA Senior Research Analyst Radomir Tylecote critique a complex system of planning and taxation that has signally failed to provide homes, preserve an attractive environment and enhance our cities. They then draw from the winning entries to the Breakthrough Prize, and previous IEA research, to put forward a series of radical and innovative measures – from releasing vast swathes of government-owned land to relaxing the suffocating grip of the green belt. Together with cutting and devolving tax, and reforms to allow cities to both densify and beautify, this would create many more homes and help restore property-owning democracy in the UK.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780255367837
Publisher:	London Publishing Partnership
Publication date:	10/10/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jacob Rees-Mogg is the Leader of the House of Commons and Conservative Member of Parliament for the constituency of North East Somerset. He was a member of the judging panel for the Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize, 2018. Jacob read History at Trinity College, Oxford, before co-founding Somerset Capital Management, an investment management firm that specialises in emerging markets.
Dr Radomir Tylecote is Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He has an MPhil from Cambridge University, and a PhD from Imperial College London Business School. Among other IEA publications he is the co-author of Plan A+: Creating a Prosperous Post-Brexit UK and Freedom to Flourish: UK Regulatory Autonomy, Recognition, and a Productive Economy. He is regularly published in the Daily Telegraph, CityAM, and elsewhere.
Stephen Ashmead is currently a strategy and insight researcher for LiveWest, a housing association in southwest England. He has previously worked as a project coordinator in a small charity in Manchester working with Irish Travellers. He has a first-class honours degree in French Studies (University of London Institute in Paris) and a master’s degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies. As well as the UK, he has lived in Paris, Spain and the Palestinian Territories.
Calvin Chan is a graduate student in philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford. He received a bachelor’s degree in the same subject from the University of Sydney and a master’s degree from Brandeis University. Over the summer of 2018, he was an intern at the IEA.
Ben Clements works as an analyst for an intelligence firm in London and is responsible for helping clients to understand the business, political and security risks to their operations across the Asia-Pacific region. He graduated from the University of Manchester in 2016 with a degree in Chinese and Japanese. Ben was also a finalist in the Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize in 2017 and the IEA’s Brexit Prize competition in 2014.
Luke McWatters recently graduated from Camden School for Girls’ Sixth Form with A-Levels in economics, history and maths. He is currently on a gap year completing his singing diploma and gaining economics-related work experience. He recently interned at Now-Casting, an econometrics firm, to further understand the technical side of economics. He will be reading Economics at university next year.
Daniel Pycock is a senior researcher to a Conservative MP in Parliament. Before that, he was a tax accountant in oil and gas and financial services for three years. Daniel was previously a finalist in the IEA’s Brexit Prize competition in 2014. He graduated with an MA in history from the University of St Andrews and has a Graduate Diploma in economics from Birkbeck College, University of London.
Thomas Schaffner is a Philosophy, Politics and Economics student at University College, Oxford, where he is the treasurer of his college’s student committee. Out of term time, he works for the college’s fundraising team as an Undergraduate Development Assistant. Growing up in Stroud, Gloucestershire, Tom was part of his local youth council.
Charles Shaw is Data Manager at Ocean Media Group. He has a BSc in financial economics from Birkbeck, University of London, and is currently studying for a master’s degree in financial risk management. Charles writes regularly on economics, finance and statistics.
Gintas Vilkelis is a technology entrepreneur. After working in physics for over twenty years, his current focus is on medical technology. He is the founder of a start-up that will bring faster and more accurate diagnostics to patients. Growing up in Soviet-occupied Lithuania made Gintas passionate about making sure that Marxism doesn’t gain a firm foothold in the West.
William Watts is reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Jesus College, Oxford. In 2018, he graduated from City of London School and undertook a gap year in which he worked as a private tutor and on a research project investigating digital transformation across a range of industries in the Chinese economy.

Table of Contents

The Richard Koch Breakthrough Prize ix

About the authors xi

Figures xv

Part 1 Raising the Roof 1

1 Raising the roof Jacob Rees-Mogg Radomir Tylecote 3

Summary 3

Introduction 6

Causes: how we tied the Gordian Knot 9

Solutions 25

The beauty of freedom 41

Appendix: Outline of the current planning system 43

References 46

Part 2 The Essays 51

2 The Land Purchase Act Ben Clements 53

Summary 53

Introduction 54

The problem stated 55

Free markets thwarted 56

The Land Purchase Act 58

How it works 60

Economic benefits 61

Towards free-market housing 62

References 64

3 Presumed permission: a self-build framework for local development rights Stephen Ashmead 65

Summary 65

Introduction 66

Why do we have a housing crisis? 69

Reinvigorating self-build through community-designed Local Development Rights 70

A new role for the local planner 74

The wider-reaching benefits of a presumed permission self-build framework 75

References 77

4 Simplified Planning Zones and the realignment of fiscal incentives Daniel Pycock Charles Shaw 79

Summary 79

The current state of the housing market 80

How the planning system works 83

Other problems with the housing market 85

Suggested policy response 88

References 92

5 Planning to the people: how a system of transferable development rights could replace the green belt Thomas Schaffner 96

Summary 96

What is the housing crisis? 97

The green belt 98

Framing the dilemma 98

A market-based solution: 'transferable development rights' 100

A replacement for the green belt? 102

Potential criticisms 104

Conclusion 105

References 106

6 Taking on established interests: a new approach to land to solve the housing shortage William Watts Luke McWatters 107

Summary 107

The problem of UK land use 108

Re-evaluation of green belt designated land 109

Reforming the system of planning 111

The removal of agricultural subsidies 113

Political considerations 114

Conclusion 116

References 117

7 The Localism 2.0 reform Gintas Vilkelis 119

Summary 119

The problem 119

The policy vision 122

Increasing the number of houses built and the proportion of property owners 125

Why reform would be possible 126

8 A supply-side answer to the housing crisis: false impressions and true solutions Calvin Chan 128

Summary 128

Introduction 129

The causes of the current crisis 130

The wrong kind of solution 131

The right kind of solution 132

Conclusion 135

References 135

A note on the longlist 137

About the IEA 140