Finding the right keys for growth: How should housing feature in the Budget?

Please note that due do technical difficulties the last couple of minutes of this event are not included in the recording.

November 13th 2025

The Budget run-in has centred around what taxes the Chancellor will need to raise to meet her fiscal rules. But housing could potentially play an equally decisive role. Ambitious planning reform could deliver the economic growth that Britain so desperately needs, the current mess of property taxation is ripe for reform, and better support for families in rented accommodation could raise living standards and reduce child poverty. Successive governments have failed to grapple with Britain’s housing challenges, but can the Chancellor afford not to grasp it?

How can planning reform be strengthened, and what might it mean for growth? How much appetite is there for touching the terrible twin taxes of stamp duty and council tax? And how should housing feature in the Government’s new Child Poverty strategy that will sit alongside the Budget?

SPEAKERS

Emily Williams

Director of Residential Research at Savills

Paul Cheshire

Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE

Jamie Carswell

Director of Housing and Safer Communities at the Royal Borough of Greenwich

Hannah Aldridge

Senior Research and Policy Analyst at the Resolution Foundation

Ruth Curtice

Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)