The housebuilder and its rivals did not need help from the taxpayer to get through the pandemic
From where Rishi Sunak sits, he might regard Taylor Wimpey’s bumper set of first-half figures as a triumph of policy-making. The chancellor threw subsidies at the housing market during the pandemic in the form of stamp duty holidays and probably hoped to see what has now materialised: record house completions and the UK’s third largest builder talking about profit upgrades and “excellent momentum into the medium term”.
From a policy perspective, though, the proper way to look at events is the precise opposite: the stamp duty giveaway was a waste of public money. The savings inevitably cling to the seller as much as the buyer, and, as should now be clear, the big housebuilders did not need a helping hand to get through lockdown.
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Originally posted in the guardian.
