House of Lords committee cites Understanding Society evidence

The House of Lords Select Committee on the Built Environment has issued a report on meeting the UK’s housing demand which cites research using Understanding Society.

The report, which came out in January 2022, mentions research by the Resolution Foundation showing that home ownership has fallen in the last 30 years, and children with parents who have property wealth are more likely to be homeowners themselves by the time they are 30.

In its report, the Committee wrote: “The increased cost of owning a home is reflected in the fact that, between 1991 and 2003, about 40% of people whose parents were homeowners had become homeowners themselves by the age of 30; this dropped to 25% between 2004 and 2017. Over the same period, the figures decreased from 19% to 9% for those whose parents were not homeowners.”

This was based on evidence which Understanding Society submitted to the Committee’s inquiry into the country’s level of housing demand and what should be done to tackle it. Our submission was published as part of the report.

The committee – chaired by Conservative peer and former Minister Lucy Neville-Rolfe – concluded that “the Government must address barriers to building much needed new homes. Too many people currently live in expensive, unsuitable, and poor-quality homes and housing supply needs to be increased to tackle the housing crisis now.”

House of Lords Built Environment Committee news article announcing its report