Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his Spring Budget speech to the House of Commons today and tackling the broken housing market was notably absent from his measures.

The main announcements were:

• Scrapping the lifetime allowance on tax-free pension contributions, and an increase in the annual allowance for pensions savings to £60,000 from £40,000.
• Fuel duty frozen for another year
• Extension of the current system of 30 free hours of childcare per week, initially to children under three and then to all children over nine months from 2025
• £11bn increase in defence spending
• Government help with energy bills extended for another three months
• Corporation tax increase from 19% to 25%.

What about housing?

Housing and mortgage market experts were left disappointed that the Chancellor didn’t focus on the tackling the dire shortage of housing supply, affordability issues and the poor energy-efficiency of UK homes.

Nick Leeming, chairman of Jackson-Stops, said: “While high energy costs were front and centre in the Chancellor’s statement, today’s announcements missed an opportunity to tackle the climate conundrum in the long term for the UK’s housing stock. Homeowners want to play their part and make their homes more energy efficient but the cost of doing so and lack of clarity on what needs to be done is holding them back.

“Funding and support to help homeowners retrofit and install low carbon heating currently does not go far enough, feeling convoluted and vastly inaccessible for many. The government’s target of reducing domestic energy usage by 15% by 2030 is ambitious and won’t be possible without a joined up effort from Government and the property industry alike.”

Jatin Ondhia, CEO of Shojin, added: “At a time when sky-high inflation is compounding the housing crisis, is no news really good news? Building costs are through the roof and access to finance remains a big issue for developers, in turn damaging efforts to boost the UK’s housing stock.

“Quite ridiculously, the revolving door for housing ministers has left the UK with six different MPs holding the role in the space of a year, while the scrapping of mandatory housebuilding targets, means that what we needed today was some clear policies to get Britain building. While all eyes will remain on Hunt and Sunak’s conservative fiscal policies, the lack of decisive action on planning reforms, construction output and the lack of affordable homes could be a dangerous oversight. Evidently, the private sector will have to forge ahead to ensure property development continues at pace.”

Richard Campo, founder of Rose Capital Partners, said: “I’m disappointed to say that there was nothing in the Budget to alleviate the pressures on the UK housing market but with 20 housing ministers since 2010 and a lack of continuity and foresight over this period, the consequences of inaction are now really biting, and will only get worse until this issue is addressed.

Paresh Raja, CEO of Market Financial Solutions, added: “It’s no secret that there are issues requiring attention in the property sector, most notably where housebuilding activity, planning regulations and the national housing stock are concerned. Clearly, as Hunt looked down his list of priorities for this particular Budget, these items were overlooked in favour of other pressing concerns.”

Childcare boost could improve affordability

Despite the lack of direct housing and mortgage measures, some experts noted that the investment into childcare could have a positive impact on mortgage afforadbility and accessiblity for some families.

Adrian Anderson, director of property finance specialists, Anderson Harris, explained: “Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has finally offered some help on the horizon to working parents with the expansion of free childcare for those aged over 9 months to three years.

“Childcare fees of potential borrowers are scrutinised by the banks and have a real impact on the affordability capacity for those seeking mortgages. Childcare fees were making some families unmortgageable.

“This expansion of free childcare in 2024 will make unmortgageable families (due to childcare costs), mortgageable, enabling them to get on the ladder or secure the right property to meet their needs.”