London housing associations call for 25% of £5bn Stamp Duty revenue to tackle housing crisis

The proposal, worth around £1.3bn a year based on 2024/25 receipts, would create a dedicated fund for permanent social housing and homelessness prevention. Over the past decade, allowing London to retain 25% of the Stamp Duty generated in the capital would have raised around £11bn for investment in social housing and tackling homelessness. 

Meanwhile, London boroughs currently spend more than £5m every day on temporary accommodation, with more than 100,000 children among the 210,000 Londoners living in temporary housing.  

In its submission ahead of the Chancellor's Budget on 28 October, the G15 warns that London's housing crisis is holding back economic growth and making it harder for employers and public services to recruit and retain workers. 

Alongside Stamp Duty retention, the G15 is calling for: 

• Greater devolution: Give London more control over housing funding, public land and skills investment, with certainty over its share of the £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme. 

• More affordable homes: Protect existing funding commitments and speed up access to low-interest loans to help housing associations build. 

• Shared ownership reform: Review the £90,000 London household income cap, unchanged since 2016, and pilot discounted mortgage rates to help shared owners buy more of their homes. G15 modelling suggests the latter could unlock £7.1bn for investment in new and existing homes over five years. 

• Action on homelessness and living costs: Restore Local Housing Allowance to reflect current rents, reform temporary accommodation funding and remove the household benefit cap. 

• Investment in existing homes: Protect funding for energy efficiency improvements and reduce the VAT costs of maintaining and improving social housing.  

Ian McDermott, G15 Chair and Chief Executive of Peabody, said: “The government has made an important long-term commitment to social and affordable housing. The next step is making sure London has the certainty and flexibility to turn that commitment into homes. 

“London’s housing crisis is increasingly an economic problem as well as a social one. If people who work in the capital can’t afford to live here, that affects employers, public services and London’s ability to support growth across the country. 

“The Budget is an opportunity to give London more of the tools it needs. That includes greater control over housing investment and allowing the capital to reinvest some of the revenues its housing market generates in permanent homes rather than continuing to spend billions managing homelessness.”