How do they expect to get away with this?

From The Metro, via Malaysia Chronicle:

 

Research by the National Housing Federation (NHF) estimates that the average first-time buyer's home will cost £245,165 in 2020. The current national average price for all homes is £239,000. The study goes on to warn that the shortage of affordable housing will mean 3.7million young people will be living with their parents by 2020, an increase of 700,000...

 

OK, so what's the government's response..?

 

... housing minister Mark Prisk said: "This report does not take proper account of the range of measures we've put in place to create a bigger and better private rented sector. That includes the £1billion Build to Rent fund and £10billion in loan guarantees to build new homes specifically for private rent. We're investing billions of pounds in an affordable homes programme that will lead to the fastest rate of house-building for two decades."

 

To paraphrase that: "We're going to take some of the tax paid by non-land owners and give it to land owners so that they can build housing to rent back to the people who paid the tax in the first place."

 

Er, how about taxing the land owners instead and giving the money to non-land owners?