Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has called for rent controls, saying that “our private rented sector has become a scam”.
Livingstone was speaking at an Evening Standard debate on the Future of the London Property Market.
He called for a huge house-building programme, saying: “Over the last four or five years, the Bank of England has printed electronically £375bn which has kept the banking system afloat.
“If a quarter of that had been diverted to a five-year housing programme, we could have bought 100,000 homes a year and not increased our debt: homes owned by the Bank of England and managed by local authorities.”
Speaking at the same conference, Richard Blakeway, the mayor’s housing chief, repeated calls for £1.6bn of Stamp Duty money raised each year from London house buyers to be ploughed into a building programme in the capital.
Comments
Well Peter, it starts with monetary reform... prices aren't high because there was 'so much money around' that everybody raided their savings to buy property....
Prices are high because banksters created new money to fund the debt bubble which drove prices far beyond what they should ever have been....
You ensure they are affordable by removing speculation from the agenda... houses are to live in, they should never have been part of the casino...
Amazing how politicians go on about house building to score points with voters but fail to address the key issues of how to ensure they are affordable. Talk is easy! Providing affordable housing is not so easy but with the right policies in place it could work.
Has any fellow citizen heard any new fresh ideas from our politicians in the last 10 years?
Time we elected some younger MP's with fresh ideas!
Peter