Dr. Robert Kelly:

There are dangers in fully being State-dependent for housing supply. It needs a mix between private sector and State-funded.

On the Deputy’s comment on affordable housing, in the ideal world, it would all be affordable housing. That brings us back to why it is not and that brings us back to these underlying issues as to why it is not affordable and viable for construction at lower cost.

Those issues are productivity, which we have discussed multiple times; some of our infrastructure issues that we need to take into account; and planning. For me, it is not necessarily about trying to segment because I do not know how we would scale up affordable housing as a bloc without addressing these issues. How can we keep it affordable if there is just no water available? Putting in the infrastructure increases the cost, unless we are actually talking about a State subvention essentially to discount the actual cost of providing a house. It would be much better if our focus were on dealing with the underlying issues. If this were the case, all housing could become more affordable, which I think is to the net benefit of everyone.