This Matters: UK housing is broken, can anyone fix it? - BBC News — Transcript

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1. 0:02let's be honest if you're under 35
2. 0:05housing in the UK is a joke not even a
3. 0:10joke a dumpster fire houses are insanely
4. 0:15expensive to buy and for renters but I
5. 0:18don't need to tell you hashtag rent your
6. 0:20rent was trending this week on Twitter
7. 0:22and you know what this problem runs way
8. 0:25deeper than you think the entire system
9. 0:28is broken so let's talk about it and
10. 0:31whether this election will actually make
11. 0:33a difference okay there's a very simple
12. 0:39problem with housing supply turns out
13. 0:42though it's incredibly complicated to
14. 0:44fix a very basic level the UK doesn't
15. 0:48have enough houses and with a growing
16. 0:50demand for such short supply houses get
17. 0:53really expensive the average house in
18. 0:56the UK these days is over 200 grand
19. 0:59that's a whopping 173 percent increase
20. 1:03on the average price in the 1990s and
21. 1:06wages haven't kept up rising only 19%
22. 1:11houses being so expensive drags rent
23. 1:14prices up to an expensive rent has
24. 1:17another knock-on effect of making it
25. 1:19really hard to save up to buy a house so
26. 1:22you can see the whole system is working
27. 1:24against itself
28. 1:25no wonder one in four young adults are
29. 1:28thought to be living at home with their
30. 1:30parents it's been happening so much
31. 1:32they've been given a name
32. 1:34boomerang Millennials nothing mum so the
33. 1:41obvious question how can we not have
34. 1:43enough houses let's just build some more
35. 1:46well that's the party's solution in
36. 1:48England anyway as pretty much everyone
37. 1:51is promising to build hundreds of
38. 1:53thousands of homes to build build we
39. 1:55build but that's so many for context if
40. 1:59you include every home that's
41. 2:01each year social and private we still
42. 2:04hardly ever cracked 150,000 luckily our
43. 2:08party leaders are always on building
44. 2:10sites conveniently surrounded by cameras
45. 2:17there's a trend with broken promises and
46. 2:19housing take the Conservatives in 2050
47. 2:22their manifesto promised 200,000 new
48. 2:26homes for first-time buyers these
49. 2:29starter homes were aimed at people under
50. 2:3140 who could buy them at a 20% discount
51. 2:33out of 200,000 how many did they manage
52. 2:37I don't have the exact numbers for it's
53. 2:40easy to remember it's zero
54. 2:41you built none under that plug okay that
55. 2:45zero is disputed but at most it's 16 and
56. 2:49the labor led Welsh government has also
57. 2:51been criticised 59 council houses in
58. 2:54Wales last year and yet you expect us to
59. 2:56believe 100,000 held but held back by a
60. 3:00Tory government well he would make that
61. 3:03excuse and in fact it was only 57 houses
62. 3:07getting on the property ladder has
63. 3:10always been a massive priority for
64. 3:12people in the UK so back in the 80s
65. 3:14Margaret Thatcher set up a scheme called
66. 3:17right to buy where people living in
67. 3:19council houses could buy them a huge
68. 3:22discount and will be able to buy it at a
69. 3:24price that one-third below market value
70. 3:27sounds good and for those who bought it
71. 3:30was great thing is we didn't build
72. 3:33enough council houses to replace the
73. 3:35ones that were being sold off so now
74. 3:38we're running out that's the thing with
75. 3:40housing you patch up one issue you
76. 3:42create another I told you it was
77. 3:44complicated and it doesn't help that one
78. 3:47topic keeps distracting the party
79. 3:49leaders even ten feet above a building
80. 3:51site
81. 3:53[Music]
82. 3:55there's another problem you've got to
83. 3:58build houses in the right places sounds
84. 4:01obvious but you need to build houses
85. 4:03where people want to live lots of young
86. 4:05people have been moving to big cities in
87. 4:07recent years and basically if there are
88. 4:09more of them there there's less supply
89. 4:11of housing and costs can go up the other
90. 4:13issue well this is awkward
91. 4:15it's about your mum and dad's house so
92. 4:18housing relies on moves it's basically a
93. 4:20giant chain but if moves slowed down and
94. 4:24people are blocking up some houses then
95. 4:26there aren't enough of the right size to
96. 4:27go around and some people say that
97. 4:29homeowners who tend to be older are
98. 4:32putting off moving because of brexit
99. 4:34uncertainty and prices stalling so that
100. 4:37can have a huge impact on the rest of
101. 4:39the chain okay let us give you an actual
102. 4:42example Birmingham is a city where the
103. 4:45housing system is breaking hard house
104. 4:48prices are up 45% in the last 10 years
105. 4:50this city has a very young population
106. 4:53and there's a big housing shortage there
107. 4:56are around 13,000 people on the
108. 4:58council's waiting list add to that the
109. 5:01fact that the population here is
110. 5:02expected to grow by quite a lot over the
111. 5:04next ten years and you can see that
112. 5:06homes are a really really precious
113. 5:09resource for a lot of us buying just
114. 5:13isn't realistic in England private
115. 5:16renting has doubled in the last twenty
116. 5:18years over a third of 25 to 34 year olds
117. 5:21rent privately and because there's a
118. 5:23shortage the quality of flats suffers so
119. 5:27it's no surprise that housing is a huge
120. 5:30voter priority and parties are chasing
121. 5:33it in power tenants and control rents
122. 5:36we're the party that actually builds the
123. 5:38homes that this country needs renters
124. 5:41rights are really big in the run-up to
125. 5:43this election the Tories want to
126. 5:45introduce a deposit that you can
127. 5:46transfer between different properties
128. 5:48but labour once you introduce rent caps
129. 5:51on prices the Lib Dems want to give out
130. 5:53loans to under 30s renting out their
131. 5:55first place but the Greens want to set
132. 5:58up something they call an affordable
133. 5:59living rat
134. 6:01housing law is different between Wales
135. 6:03Scotland and England because it's
136. 6:06devolved renters actually have more
137. 6:08rights in Scotland than they do in
138. 6:09England if you were to come and live say
139. 6:12somewhere like here in Glasgow when you
140. 6:14get a tenancy out there's no end date so
141. 6:17you can stay there for as long as you
142. 6:18want as long as you don't break the
143. 6:20rules and your rent will only be
144. 6:22increased once a year and you can
145. 6:24challenge that if you're not happy and
146. 6:26when renting goes really wrong the
147. 6:28consequences can be so severe in England
148. 6:31a quarter of homelessness is caused by a
149. 6:34tenancy ending you know I don't know
150. 6:35what I'm gonna be sleeping from that
151. 6:37tonight you know I mean you know I might
152. 6:39I might find out that it's there
153. 6:41somewhere for a few days but then again
154. 6:43after that it's doing it all over again
155. 6:46extremely hard because doing the a law
156. 6:48was it stressful it is it's hard to
157. 6:49focus on doing your schoolwork in
158. 6:51revision during the day when you're
159. 6:52worrying about where you're gonna be
160. 6:53sleepin tonight
161. 6:54housing charity shelter estimates three
162. 6:57hundred and twenty thousand people are
163. 6:59homeless in Britain so whatever promises
164. 7:08party's make to build houses
165. 7:10just remember it's so much harder to
166. 7:13turn that into an actual reality for
167. 7:16some people who can't afford to buy and
168. 7:18can't bear to rent it's time to look at
169. 7:21drastic alternative --zz hi I'm Claire
170. 7:23and I'm Aubrey and we live in a shipping
171. 7:25container frankly a shipping container
172. 7:28sounds less dangerous than Boris
173. 7:29Johnson's house someone had dropped a
174. 7:32cabbage yet you know there's very short
175. 7:33bits of glass and and yeah to be honest
176. 7:38whoever wins this election the party's
177. 7:40track records suggest not enough houses
178. 7:43are gonna get built
179. 7:43I do think I'll ever be able to get on
180. 7:45the housing ladder based on my own
181. 7:47income and my own salary month-on-month
182. 7:49you you're pretty much chewing up all of
183. 7:51your wages just to keep a roof over yet
184. 7:53so there's every chance that what
185. 7:55they're promising just won't happen and
186. 7:57as we've seen housing policy always gets
187. 8:00really complicated so be wary this
188. 8:03election of flashy overly simple housing
189. 8:06promises
190. 8:07until next time see ya
191. 8:18you