PERSONAL VIEWS

Mark Fransham and Danny Dorling

Every so often a social statistic is released that confirms that something extraordinary has occurred, something so strange that it cannot continue.

One such statistic is found in the rise in private renting in Britain. The rise has now reached such a speed that if it were to continue at current rates, within 10 years half of all households headed by someone aged under 55 would be renting privately. Within another 10 years half of all households would be.

Private landlords are buying up such a high proportion of properties that as people age their chance of not having to rent privately for another year no longer improves. The housing ladder is becoming a fiction.

The fact that we cannot sensibly expect those trends to continue may tell us many things, not least about house prices: they can keep rising only if we keep moving this quickly towards a mass private renting future. Mark Fransham and Danny Dorling are academics at Oxford University

Alan Ward

The changes to the taxation of the private rented sector are based on evidence that is threadbare at best. This is no way to make policy and could have a devastating effect on tenants and housing supply.

The Government should use its windfall from its stamp duty surcharge to lessen the burden of the tax rises. It should, at the very least, apply the mortgage interest changes only to new borrowing.

It should not apply the stamp duty surcharge when landlords invest in property that adds to the supply of housing. It is crazy to levy an extra tax on new housing when more is so badly needed.

The Chancellor should reverse his predecessor’s approach and recognise that landlords are part of the solution, not part of the problem. Alan Ward is chairman of the Residential Landlords Association