ASSEMBLY Member Mohammad Asghar deludes himself if he imagines that his typically Tory mix of bribes and gimmicks will help more than a handful of first-time buyers on to the ladder of home ownership.
Many young people have been priced out of home ownership because for many years the rise in house prices has outstripped the rise in average incomes.
The ultimate cause of this is the failure of successive governments to build enough affordable houses and as long as this failure persists the measures proposed by Mr Asghar, although they might benefit the lucky purchasers who “get in first” will simply raise house prices even more for everyone else.
Mr Asghar does not address the question of why so few houses are being built, and for an obvious reason.
Starting with Margaret Thatcher’s government, councils were forced to sell off their housing stock to existing tenants using the bribe of a huge discount – a nice example of the “something for nothing” culture which the present generation of Tory politicians so enthusiastically decry. Councils were not allowed to use the funds generated by these sales to build more houses and that naturally put pressure on people either to enter the private rental market or to try to put a foot on the home-ownership ladder, thereby raising house prices.
The housing market has failed and nothing in Mr Asghar’s proposals will touch that problem.

Clive Shakesheff
Lewis Way
Chepstow