Draft Queen's speech - housing and skills

The PM today set out the Government's draft legislative programme for the next session of Parliament (starting in November). It included announcements on housing and skills:

Housing: £100m expansion of the Government's HomeBuy shared equity/ownership scheme - this will  allow first-time buyers on up to £60k a year (not just key workers) to buy a share of a home. £200 million fund (from the Housing Corporation's existing budget) to buy unsold new private houses, and rent them to social tenants.

Skills: Young people to be given a statutory right to an apprenticeship - aiming to increase the number of apprenticeships to 210k by 2011. Every adult worker to have personal skills accounts and the right to time off for training. Duty on every unemployed person to have their skills needs assessed and to acquire skills. Incapacity Benefit claimants to have a medical assessment.

The 2008-09 session will contain a total of 18 bills, including:

• a Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill - which will give greater powers to regions and local authorities. The upcoming Empowerment White Paper this summer will set out more details.
• a Business Rates Supplements Bill - which will allow top-tier local authorities to levy a local supplement on the business rates, and retain the proceeds for local investment. This will first of all be used in London, to part-finance Crossrail.

What do we think?

On housing: The Government is keen to use shared ownership and equity schemes to increase access to homeownership. As I said back in May, take-up of these schemes has so far been low - which explains today's announcement. But with house prices falling, and housing starts 10% lower this year than a year ago - as revealed by Caroline Flint's briefing note yesterday - these schemes are likely to have limited overall impact. We'd rather see a broader-based strategy for increasing housing supply and affordability, with a bigger emphasis on developing the private-rented sector.

On skills: We support the apprenticeships commitment, but there may not be enough to go round - especially in London, where only 5% of all apprenticeships are available. The Government will need to do more, to encourage e.g. SME employers to create apprenticeships. Personal Skills Accounts are also a good idea - but employers and training agencies will need to make sure that individuals' skills match up with what employers need, or are "demand-led". Medical assessments for the 2.5 million people on IB is the right step, but will be a tall order - GPs surgeries may need to stay open 24 hours!