Estate agents cannot count on buyers with growing incomes to boost the property market, David Willetts warned The Negotiator Conference on Friday.

He told delegates the outlook for salary rises was “dismal” with growth of only around 0.5% per year.

It is a pretty grim picture.”

“It is a pretty grim picture,” he said, and it will not help with demand of people wanting to buy homes.

Lord Willetts (main picture), who is a former Government minister and is now President of the thinktank The Resolution Foundation, stated that Stamp Duty “does impede transactions”.

He said the Foundation, which is highly influential in Government economic thinking, supported reductions in Stamp Duty, although Chancellor Rachel Reeves turned down the opportunity to change the rates in last week’s Budget.

Sceptical

The Government’s target of building 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament looked unachievable, according to Lord Willetts.

He said he supported changes to the planning rules to facilitate more homes, but was sceptical it would work enough.

There has to be a radical change in building activity to get anything like what the Government is aiming for.”

“There has to be a radical change in building activity to get anything like what the Government is aiming for,” he warned.

Willetts, welcomed the decision by ministers to U-turn on the Employment Rights Bill so that workers will only be able to claim unfair dismissal after six months in a new job rather than from day one.

“We were worried this was going to be a barrier to young people getting employment,” he said.

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