Brown promises to address home affordability
Gordon Brown has pledged that one of his priorities will be to address the shortage of affordable housing in the UK as soon as he becomes prime minister.Speaking on BBC One's Politics Show, Mr Brown said that one of his first tasks in his new role will be to deal with the issue of the difficulty that young families face getting onto the property ladder.The new prime minister said that he would increase the budget for social housing by 50 per cent and work with both housing associations and the private sector to tackle the housing issue."I think you'll find that the debate about housing is becoming far broader than it was a few years ago," he said. "In other words, we've got a national priority to build more houses and of course the private sector will build almost the biggest share of them. "We've got to look at whether the arrangements that govern the building of housing, both to rent and to buy, are going to get us the results that we need, which is to meet the demand, particularly of young couples wanting to get onto the housing ladder for the first time, frustrated they're not able to do," said Mr Brown."That's why I said the new challenge is affordable housing and it's one that we will address immediately."
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