£5 million spent on renting MPs’ second homes
The housing crisis is splitting the country in two
The number of houses being left empty has increased by 25% in the past decade – and so has the number of households with 6 or more people. That’s according to the Office for National Statistics, which has published analysis of household composition data from the 2011 census.
It’s already well-documented that private renting has risen as fewer people are able to afford to buy a house, but these two statistics are a stark illustration of the growing inequality in British society as a result of the broken housing market. The 3 million-plus people crammed into the 543,000 households of 6 or more would be a bit annoyed to know that there are over 1 million homes around the country that are going spare.