Housing Needs: Young People

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

This is the first time I have served with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. It is a pleasure to do so, and to take part in this debate about the housing needs of young people. I thank the hon. Members for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) and for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) for raising this important topic.

The housing needs of young people are multifaceted, with experiences ranging from those in temporary accommodation to those in the private rented sector, those who own their home and those who, for whatever reason, unfortunately find themselves sleeping rough. However, what is clear is that the Government are overseeing a growing problem, and forecasts for the rest of this Parliament predict further misery for young people, whether they are seeking their first home or merely a stable home.

One of the core issues behind the housing problem facing young people is a lack of supply, and the axing of measures that were designed to bolster demand. The dream of home ownership should be a reality for every hard-working person in this country, on which I think there is collective agreement in this room, but that is not the case. The Government have not yet done enough to make that dream a reality.

For example, recent ONS figures show that the Government’s record in house building is not just a sorry sight; in fact, it is significantly worsening. The statistics show that house building in England is on track to fall to its lowest level in more than a decade. During this Government’s first 15 months in office, just 175,290 homes were completed in England—a far cry from the lofty target of 300,000 needed to meet their manifesto pledge to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament in 2029.

That crash is not showing signs of improvement either, with the three months to September 2025 seeing the number of dwellings drop to 30,880—the weakest quarter since the pandemic. Based on the pace recorded in the first three quarters of 2025, England is set for the lowest number of annual completions for over a decade, totalling just a measly 130,000. Those figures come alongside a release from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government last November, which showed that the number of net new additional dwellings in England was 208,600 in the Government’s first year in power—a 6% drop from 2023-24 during the Conservative Government’s final year in office. Some 190,600 new homes were built, which was a fall of 8,000, or 4%, from 2023-24, once again suggesting that the Government are on course to fall well short of their 1.5 million homes pledge. If they fail to increase the rate of house building, there will be fewer than 1 million new homes completed by 2029, which is well short of their target.

What does that mean for young people trying to get on the housing ladder? It means it is becoming only more difficult to buy a home, not easier, and that young people are being failed by the Government. It is not just in housing supply that Whitehall currently presents more hinderances than help for young people. Demand for homes is far from insignificant in this country, not least among young people, but the Government are doing almost nothing to help that demand yield results. By November 2024, having been in office for just four months, they had taken an axe to the previous Government’s measures to get people on the housing ladder by cutting right to buy, first-time buyer stamp duty relief and the affordable homes to purchase programme. That has done nothing to help an already unaffordable housing market. It has in fact moved one of life’s primary assets—the ability to purchase one’s own home—further out of the reach of young people.

Young people already face huge challenges in buying a home. For example, the average age of a first-time buyer in England has climbed to 34, as pointed out by the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire. New research shows the growing difficulty of getting on to the housing ladder, with the average deposit worth around a 10th more than a person’s yearly salary. Research also shows that the average age is rapidly being pushed up by the collapse of the portion of first-time buyers aged under 25. They now make up just 6%, despite having made up one quarter of those buying their first home in the 1990s. To compound the misery, more than half of first-time buyers now need two incomes to make a purchase.

Of course, it is important to consider not just those who are fortunate enough to consider buying their first home, but those who are renting, in social housing or in no house at all. On renting, a recent and very informative report by Centrepoint found that one third of young people in the private rental sector reported discrimination by landlords or agents, with the biggest issue being employment status. As unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds hits 16% as a direct result of the Government’s economic policies—a higher rate than during the pandemic—on the current trajectory, this issue will only worsen for young people, not improve. On top of that, young people face the prospect of a reduced supply of rental housing and, correspondingly, higher rents, which we are beginning to see on the back of the Government’s rental reforms.

For young people in social housing, the picture is no brighter. In the same report, Centrepoint highlighted that there are approximately 130,000 young households on housing registers. That means that if social housing were allocated at its current rate, with no new social housing applications from young households filed, it would still take more than six years to clear existing housing registers. To say the least, that is not a positive state of affairs. I hope the Minister will set out a clear path to addressing it in a couple of minutes’ time.

There is also a need to tackle the frightening rates of youth homelessness and young people staying in temporary accommodation. I am sure we all agree that no one should enter adulthood without the stability of a permanent and safe home, but under this Government, rough sleeping has hit its highest level since records began. More young people were staying in temporary accommodation, and for longer periods, in 2024-25, and 123,934 young people faced or were at risk of homelessness between April 2024 and March 2025—a 6% increase in just a year.

I doubt that the Government have done that on purpose, but young people deserve better. They deserve safe and affordable homes with demand-side support to make the dream of home ownership a reality. That is why the Conservative party has pledged that a future Conservative Government will abolish stamp duty on primary residences. It is a bad tax, and one that needs to be abolished on primary residences to get the housing market moving and to give young people a better chance of getting on to the property ladder. I call on the Minister to get behind that plan, to reverse his Department’s recent failures, to get Britain building, and to get young people to obtain a real stake in their community, their society and their own lives through affordable and targeted housing.