There are two key measures to ease Britain's downsizing crisis - and it could be very attractive for older people, says Brandon Lewis

Today we expect to have a home of our own, whatever the tenure ownership: rented, affordable or owned.

As we live longer, that in itself is putting pressure on the housing market. We can debate long and hard about how much pressure is put on through immigration as well as the growing population more generally.

Yet there is no doubt that part of the problem is the very positive news that we are living longer, as a result of improving medical care and our own general health.

Therefore what can we do to encourage, in particular the baby boomer generation who have had many years of property value growth, into downsizing? The current tax and planning system does little to encourage anyone to downsize.

There are a range of things we need to do. We need to free up and ease our planning system to ensure we are building more homes - to ensure we are delivering for families as they separate or grow.

It is rare now for multiple generations to live together in the same home. We expect people to move out at a certain age (much as we all love our teenage children), or for elderly parents to go into care homes (which did not exist in any great quantity two generations ago).

Yet there is nothing to financially incentivise this.

Another big challenge is that nothing in the system exists to encourage more homes to suit older generations.

It is increasingly hard to get planning permission and because of that, land values continue to grow, particularly in popular areas.

This makes bungalow provision hard for viability purposes. In areas like my old constituency of Great Yarmouth, there is a record of delivering bungalows, and they sell well and are popular.

They give a good alternative to an older generation, particularly with mobility issues, the sort of property they might want.

If you want people to downsize we have got to ensure the planning system provides the type of homes that they actually want, be that bungalows, a form of supported accommodation, or private retirement villages; all of these require flexibility in the planning system to actually deliver the provision that we need. That is currently absent.

Housing targets should be refined to specify percentages of single, double, and multi-bedroom developments, to nudge development beyond just executive properties and to also entice downsizers to smaller properties.

However, there is an important factor, the financial motivation to move.

Older people who move home can be caught by stamp duty.

If you have a home that you can afford to live in, even if it is too big, what is the motivation to move when moving creates a tax implication that you can otherwise avoid by not moving?

Therefore it’s only logical that the key thing that the Conservative government should have done and the new Labour government now should be looking at is to remove stamp duty for those who are downsizing.

In doing this we can take away one of the biggest complaints for older people around the decision to downsize, which is the tax implications, and then we may actually give people a reason to do it.

The ability to release equity to support their future years could be very attractive and may well encourage people to downsize. This would also free up equity that can be spent in the wider economy, which is good for economic growth and jobs.

It should be of little surprise that the wealthy USA has three times more money in equity than it does in property, whereas we have the same amount in each.

It also frees up the homes we need for younger people, homes built originally for multiple occupancy can therefore satisfy the needs of families who are currently struggling to find supply.

MORE FROM GBN MEMBERSHIP:

The reality is we need to admit to ourselves that for most people the decision to move home is based on economics.

We work out what we can afford, when we can afford it, and how we can afford it.

We want to encourage people to downsize into smaller properties when it suits their needs, to create capacity for a younger generation and future families.

We need to make that economic decision easier, simpler and clearer.

We need to ensure that we make downsizing appealing and for that, there needs to be a tax benefit that creates an incentive to downsize to homes of the right size and type for people's age in the future.