An influential think-tank has called on the government to scrap Stamp Duty on residential home purchases to help older people downsize.

In a new report this week Policy Exchange says the £14 billion stamp duty tax stalls the property market by punishing retirees looking to sell large homes.

TRUTH

Tory MP Brandon Lewis, a former housing minister, admits in the forward to the report: “The truth is that since the 1970s, we have consistently failed to deliver enough new housing to meet demand.

“The toll on British households of our failure to build enough new housing in the form of higher house prices, higher rents and higher monthly mortgage repayments is clear.

“To fulfil our country’s great potential, we must give young people cause to believe that, like their parents, securing a good job will enable them to buy a home of their own, and to settling down and have children.

“These ambitions depend on us delivering more homes. Addressing the UK’s housing shortage is a huge challenge, perhaps the greatest that we face as a country.

“At the same time, though, solving the crisis holds out the dual prospect of placing rocket boosters under our economy and selling a new generation on the “British dream” of homeownership.”

SUSTAINABLE

The report says that the only route towards a sustainable house price level is a corresponding sustainable increase in the supply of new homes.

The government cannot continue to put off the strategic action that the housing market requires.”

Report author Dr James Vitali, Research Fellow at Policy Exchange , says: “Improvements will not happen overnight, but the government cannot continue to put off the strategic action that the housing market requires.

“Housing certainly is one of the thorniest and most testing challenges we face. The government needs to redouble its efforts towards the hard work of building communities of interest in favour of development, and it needs to better support businesses in supplying the homes that the country badly needs.”

Download the report HERE.