Mayor wants stamp duty from sale of London homes to invest in future housing

The Mayor of London wants the city to be able to hold onto the property stamp duty that is raised from home sales in the capital so that it can fund the building of a million high quality homes needed in the next 25 years.

Boris Johnson says that this radical proposal would secure a funding stream and with other measures to deregulate house building it would allow the capital to deliver a long term housing plan to avoid a housing crisis that threatens its economic growth and global competitiveness.

He wants central government to allow London to retain all stamp duty receipts raised on its property sales, estimated to be worth £1.3 billion a year, to ensure it can build the million homes that London will need by the mid 2030s.

He added that just as the UK economy cannot grow sufficiently without investing in its infrastructure London’s economic growth and global competitiveness will be threatened without the homes it desperately needs to secure long term stability and prosperity.

The Mayor's proposal would give the capital a stable income stream to create a 25 year plan that will not just solve its housing needs but would create hundreds of thousands of long term jobs and give a massive boost to its economy benefiting the whole of the UK.

In a keynote speech to the Chartered Institute of Housing Johnson said that London cannot rely solely on a planning led system which has delivered only half the number of homes needed for 20 years.
 
He believes that London, not Whitehall, is best placed to address the problem having already proved itself with a record number of over 50,000 new affordable homes built in his first term and the introduction of innovative programmes to meet the different needs of Londoners under the Mayor's Housing Covenant.

He added that since his re-election in May 2012 more than 100 hectares of public sector land, equivalent to twice the size of London's Soho district, has been released to the market giving the capital's economy a £1 billion boost.

With the majority of Londoners paying at least 3% stamp duty and new levies on homes costing over £2 million focused largely on central London, it is increasingly becoming a London tax. The Mayor argues that it is right that London should retain this revenue for the benefit of Londoners who will drive the growth that will lead Britain to increased economic prosperity.

He explained that this would be in line with the coalition government's cornerstone policy of localising spending and returning power and decision making to the regions especially when Scotland will retain its stamp duty receipts from 2015 and Wales is likely to follow suit in the future.

And he said that devolving stamp duty of £1.3 billion annually back to London is vital when UK capital expenditure is so constrained and with no housing settlement yet agreed beyond 2015. It would enable City Hall to borrow on the capital markets against this key revenue stream for the investment it needs help stimulate infrastructure investment to unlock housing growth, kick start the many stalled developments in the city and make longer term commitments to regeneration of existing housing estates.

He added this would also be crucial in creating and underwriting a range of new housing products particularly important to help those Londoners who contribute so much to the London economy but are struggling to get a foot on the home ownership ladder.

Other goals include giving London boroughs more freedom to build homes, including removing the borrowing limits on town halls which severely restricts their ability to deliver new homes. 

He also wants to give housing associations long term certainty to build affordable and market homes and create a new affordable housing settlement for London from 2015 with rents reflecting incomes and within housing benefit levels.

‘Since I was elected London’s population has grown by 600,000 and is forecast to rise by a further million at least over the next 25 years. If we do not come up with a new plan to build the homes we need, this great city will suffer and the whole country will feel the consequences,’ said Johnson.

‘What is needed now is a radically different approach which optimises City Hall's role, unlocks the potential of the capital's boroughs, allows developers including housing associations to up their game and creates a stable supply of land for housing. Above all, London needs a stable funding stream which will support and accelerate its housing and infrastructure delivery,’ he told the meeting.

‘Even in the toughest of economic times London has shown that with fresh thinking it can deliver, with record affordable house building figures in my first Mayoral term. So I am calling on the coalition to give us the tools and we will solve the crisis, supporting and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and boosting economic growth across the UK along the way,’ he added.

The Mayor is currently on track to deliver 100,000 affordable completions over two Mayoral terms. He is over half way in delivering this, with last year seeing more completions than any year since at least 1991. More than 50,000 Londoners are also being helped to buy their own home through a combination of First Steps and the £100 million Housing Covenant.

More than 80 hectares of GLA land has been released since May 2012, with an economic value of £1.2 billion with development agreements signed to build in Tower Hamlets and Catford Dogs in Lewisham.

He is also investing in major regeneration schemes like Kidbrooke and Woodberry Down, and accelerating delivery on big projects like Greenwich Peninsula and Barking Riverside. Some £300 million has been allocated through Transport for London to unlock housing growth through targeted transport infrastructure, from Elephant and Castle to Woolwich.