HOUSING BY NUMBERS

摘要

In 2010, barely four months in office and already facing a select committee interrogation over the coalition's building plans, housing minister Grant Shapps declared: "Building more homes is the gold standard upon which we shall be judged. The idea is to get a system which delivers housing in this country." Shapps might have moved on - he is helping to mastermind Conservative electoral strategy as party chairman - but his words from September 2010 remain in the records of the House of Commons' communities and local government select committee as a challenge laid down to his own government, and those that come after. So, after five years of coalition government, does the UK indeed now enjoy a working "system which delivers housing"? Labour MP Clive Betts, who chaired the committee until the dissolution of parliament, believes not, saying that the coalition "singularly failed to achieve" Shapps' promise. But what do the numbers say?