We need less government, not more, especially when it comes to housing

I have no problem with the Labour party’s definition of “grey belt land”. It means land that is technically in the green belt but is anything but. It is land that Conservative ministers refuse to countenance being built on which is not only irrational but is not what most conservative voters think.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Polling research has demonstrated how over the last decade we have gone from prioritising NIMBY to becoming more YIMBY because people are much more worried about their own children’s ability to even rent a decent place to live, let alone countenance getting on the ownership ladder.

Labour also talks about not just building homes but making sure they are more than places to lay your head at the end of a working day. They want developers to think in terms of community and accessibility, all laudable objectives. And then they go and spoil it all by saying something stupid, as Nancy Sinatra so beautifully intoned, by insisting that any such development should provide a minimum of 50% affordable housing.

The argument over setting arbitrary percentage targets for affordable housing is not new. The London mayor is an advocate and so it now seems are the next government. This is a grave mistake. Every site is different. There will be many where any red book valuation would indicate that 50% affordable was deliverable.

But in the vast majority, expecting a developer to make any money when being asked to build two homes for every one they sell is simply asking too much and the sad conclusion is that in those cases insistence on 50% results in 0% being built. Zero affordable and zero open market and a real tragedy in the making.

No doubt there will be those who see me as arguing for developers to make even more money than they do already. Sadly, this seriously misunderstands the position in which even the most ambitious developers find themselves.

Before they start, they have to weigh up the cost of the land and the price of building, which is subject to change on a monthly basis and varies from place to place depending how much else is going on in the area. They then have to make an educated but necessarily imperfect guess at the exit value of the property they build. In short, they take big risks and many once famous names have failed because their guesses educated or otherwise were wrong.

I do believe Labour are serious about wanting to build at least 300,000 home a year. If they can, they will earn our thanks and praise. But they do have to appreciate that putting virtue signalling before common sense will not aid their ambition.

One of my genuine concerns about the next government is that they appear to be focused on more government and a more costly state. We need less government not more. Businesses need less regulation not more. They don’t want the government picking winners because they so often turn out to be losers.

Experience has taught us nationalisation almost always fails. The star in the nationalisation firmament was created in 1948. The National Health Service was unique after World War II. We were the only country in the world that offered health care free at the point of demand based on your needs rather than your means. We were rightly proud of it. Not even Labour’s shadow health secretary, the impressive Wes Streeting, is proud of it now. It is an object lesson in the failure of centralised government.

What the UK desperately needs is a smaller state. Sir John Major recently pointed out that when he inherited 10 Downing Street from Mrs Thatcher there were 150 people who worked there. There are now almost 400. ‘Do we feel three times better governed?’ he asked. I think you know the answer.