Tony Blair Comes out in Favour of LVT. Better Late than Never...

Alter welcomes the report https://institute.global/insight/renewing-centre/home-truths-progressive-vision-housing-policy-21st-century published by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

The executive summary is reproduced below:

A housing crisis is sweeping through cities from Sydney to London to San Francisco. Following a short slump in 2008, house prices across the OECD have soared, contributing to a decline in living standards and a rise in wealth inequality. Today, housing is the source of economic anxiety, social resentment, and political frustration.

This report sets out a bold new progressive agenda for housing reform. Many governments today are caught between the competing interests of different housing tenures. The result is timid policy that tinkers at the edge of the housing market. The goal of this report is to move past the gridlock to forge a new political consensus that balances the aspirations of renters and homeowners and builds a future of shared prosperity.

We begin with the principles. For decades, the goal of housing policy has been to boost homeownership. But the promise of these policies has recently given way to their pitfalls: levels of homeownership are at record lows, while levels of rental sector evictions are reaching record highs. Progressive housing policy must therefore be rooted in a broader set of principles: providing security for all tenures, promoting community between residents and newcomers, and guaranteeing macroeconomic stability against excessive property speculation.

We propose five policies to advance these principles, including a community reinvestment programme based on a land value tax and a sovereign property fund that expands public housing investment. Together, they aim not only to boost overall housing production, but also to guarantee that the houses we produce are affordable.

Housing reform will never yield easy win-win solutions. Each of the policies presented in this report involves trade-offs. We need now to address those trade-offs head-on. Only an open and honest discussion of the politics- not just the policy - of housing can move us toward a housing market that works for the many, not the few.