CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE: The government wants innovation in the housing sector similar to that seen in the financial services sector over the past decade.
“The housebuilding and home ownership market has not changed significantly for 120 years… and has agglomerated into a large number of players,” said housing minister Kit Malthouse.
“As a result you do not get a lot of innovation, so we are very keen to encourage as much innovation as we can.”
Malthouse pointed to the changes seen in the financial services industry and what technology has achieved.
“We would like to see that across more markets,” he said.
Malthouse was addressing a fringe meeting themed around bringing back mass ownership, but said he did not want to “place a bet on any one sector”.
He said housing associations had the advantage of being counter cyclical, while the bulk of volume still and should come from the private market.
He said the government wants a “big vibrant” market with a “big landscape of tenures” that all types of people with different lifestyles can fit into.
“Anyone who wants to build should be building,” he said. “I should add that as the Conservative Party we believe everybody who wants it should have a shot at ownership.”
Malthouse said the Letwin review would also be looking at different models of homes.
“Part of the Letwin Review is why should the large housebuilders only produce one model of house? One of the things we should do is encourage them to have different models of homes.”
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