Single-lever policy simulation · housing

Social housing investment

£12bn/yr→£21bn/yr10-year projection

This report models the effect of raising social housing investment from £12bn/yr to £21bn/yr — with every other government policy left unchanged — on housing, the public finances, public opinion, community cohesion and inequality, projected over 10 years.

Bottom line

Eases Rent pressure, Public satisfaction and Social cohesion, but worsens Fiscal pressure, GDP strength and NHS staffing.

A single lever moved in isolation — which no real government does. Figures are modelled projections, not predictions. How the model works →

Direct effects

▼Rent pressure

moderate improvement

Why: Social housing provides affordable alternatives, reducing private rent pressure

⏱ Effect builds over 3–4 years

▼Inequality

mild improvement

Why: Social housing investment has no short causal path to inequality in the model. Any movement you see is the tail end of long chains through shared composites (fiscal pressure, public satisfaction, political risk) and will be small.

⏱ Effect builds over 3–4 years

Knock-on effects

Reached indirectly, as the direct effects propagate through the system. Ordering reflects how the effect spreads, not a literal sequence in time.

▲Fiscal pressuremild

▲Public satisfactionmild

▲Social cohesionmild

▼GDP strengthslight

▲NHS staffingslight

▲Social care staffingslight

▲House pricesslight

Model output — exact figures

Rent pressure72 → 60 (-12)

Fiscal pressure61 → 67 (+6)

Public satisfaction38 → 41 (+3)

Social cohesion48 → 51 (+3)

Inequality50 → 47 (-3)

GDP strength45 → 44 (-1)

NHS staffing73 → 74 (+1)

Social care staffing70 → 71 (+1)

House prices65 → 66 (+1)

Index points on a 0–100 scale. Lower is better for pressure metrics; higher is better for outcomes like GDP and satisfaction.

See the full report for this change →Open the full simulator