Theme: Political Economy | Content Type: Journal article

Governments, Home Ownership and Low-Cost Home Ownership Initiatives

Peter Williams

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Mark Hamilton

| 1 min read

Widening the spectrum of households who can enter home ownership has been a long-established policy in the UK. This article explores low-cost home ownership initiatives from the late 1970s onwards and in the context of home ownership more generally. Over the decades, government support for home ownership has shifted from making tax concessions to households and providing building subsides for local authorities, to a centrally driven housing programme focussed around a myriad of part-rent part-own and equity sharing schemes alongside the Right to Buy. The Labour government now faces difficult decisions regarding housing priorities, not least given budget constraints. While its focus will understandably be on providing more social rented homes, there is still a need to assist meeting aspirations around home ownership which have been much eroded in recent years. Both need to be supported with a close eye on cost and impact.

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    Peter Williams

    Professor Peter Williams is a Departmental Fellow at the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge.

    Articles by Peter Williams
Volume 97, Issue 3

Latest Journal Issue

Volume 97, Issue 3

Includes a collection on 'The Political Economy of Tourism', edited by Kira Gartzou-Katsouyanni. Contributions include a piece on climate change in tourism-intensive Alpine regions by Valentina Ausserladscheider; Fathimath Musthaq's comparison between restrictions on tourism in the Seychelles and the Maldives; and Lorenzo Mascioli's investigation into how public policy can be used to make local tourism more sustainable. In our opening commentary, Deborah Mabbett reflects that good policy making is often a tedious process. Other articles include Thomas Quinn, Nicholas Allen and John Bartle on Labour's "Red–Green electoral threat"; Eda Bektas, Korhan Mühürcüoğlu on the paradox of power in Turkey; and Nikhil Datta and Amrita Kulka on Labour's home-building plans. Book reviews include Stephen Coleman's assessment of Matthew Goodwin's latest book, 'Suicide of a Nation'.

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