Positive Money is hosting an online event to launch their new report: Banking on property: What is driving the housing affordability crisis and how to solve it.

• Join us on Thursday 31st March at 10.30am via Zoom
• Lead authors Danisha Kazi and Laurie Macfarlane will discuss their key findings and take questions, alongside guest speakers Labour MP Tulip Siddiq and Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake
• Please RSVP now to register.

Background info:

In 2021 house prices in the UK went up at the fastest pace in over a decade, despite the economy still recovering from one of the worst economic contractions in 300 years. The growing disconnect between the housing market and the rest of the economy is a symptom of the UK's longstanding housing crisis.

Stable homes give us the security we all need to live healthy and fulfilled lives. But the UK’s current economic model has seen housing assume the role of a financial asset, rather than a home. Positive Money’s new report finds that rising house prices are rooted in a series of policy changes that have sought to promote home ownership as the dominant form of tenure, and transform houses into vehicles for accumulating wealth rather than a right for everyone.

The report explores how policies have not only exacerbated house price growth but, and by extension, turbocharged inequality in the UK between the housing haves and have nots. It recommends that the UK Government launches a new long-term housing strategy focused on tackling the root causes of the soaring price of homes, the goal being to stabilise house prices and bring the house-price-to-income ratio down to more sustainable levels over time.

Authors Danisha Kazi and Laurie Macfarlane will introduce the report, with responses from a panel featuring Shadow City Minister Tulip Siddiq MP, Conservative MP and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking Kevin Hollinrake, and other speakers, to be confirmed and other speakers, to be confirmed. The panel discussion will be chaired by Fran Boait, and conclude at 12noon.