Incentive scheme maths is wrong
Grant Shapps is strong on rhetoric (Inside Housing, 26 February) but weak on mathematics.
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He fails to recognise that because his so-called incentive scheme involves a commitment to match council tax yield over six years, the cost escalates at an alarming rate - not just to the £1 billion which he admits but to at least £2.3 billion and probably to in excess of £5.5 billion.
The lowest figures are based on extremely cautious estimates - no increase in output of new housing, and no increase in council tax and the scheme abandoned after just three years as a failure.
Were the scheme to last for five years and housing output to recover to 150,000 units a year over that timescale, the cost would be more than £5.5 billion and that also assumes no increase in council tax. Such costs could only be met by swingeing cuts in other council services through top-slicing revenue support grant.
To wilfully damage other local services to fund a totally untested and in most people’s view non-credible incentive scheme, indicates inexperience on a grand scale.
Nick Raynsford MP, House of Commons, Westminster