Dr. Robert Kelly:

Two things. I will be quick. On the Deputy’s first comment on yields needing to go up, it is important to always acknowledge that yield is a function of price. Price is being pushed up because of lack of supply. There can be a situation where yields are a little bit higher but because the overall supply situation is better and balanced, they are investing less capital because the house price, or the cost of construction, is lower to start with. Therefore, it is not just yields. There is a difference between yields and what the cost of a rental is to an individual, and they can separate.

On the Deputy’s point, I do not know if there is that much differential in how we think about arriving at this figure. I think the decision we need to make is how quickly we want to unwind this supply imbalance. The figure of 52,000 that we come with is doing it over 25 years, which feels like a long time. We did the figure and said we would try to do it over a decade, but then how feasible is it that we start to bring ourselves up into the 70,000s if we are talking about what is needed to go up 20,000? Maybe the right discussion is on what is the sustainable and sensible approach to absorbing this. If we want to do it quicker, what would we need to do, and if we want to do over a longer period? Once we get over the mid-40,000s, the Deputy will see from some of the estimate here, we are making a positive contribution and lowering it. The question is then how quickly we want to do it.