This isn't proof of a housing crisis

That we do have a housing problem is obvious. The reason we’ve got one is because the law - the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors - makes it illegal to build houses Britons would like to live in where Britons would like to live. The solution is to blow up that Act, proper blow up, kablooie.

Return to the free market of the 1930s which is the last time that private housebuilding did meet demand.

We all know that.

However, we do also need to point out bad logic and bad evidence:

House-building alone won’t solve the crisis, but it will hugely contribute to some of the most urgent needs in this country – namely the 1.3 million people on English council house waiting lists in need of social rented homes, many of whom are privately renting and sliding into poverty.

Social housing is, by very definition, at less than market price. That there’s a queue for something at less than market price is not a proof of need. It’s a proof of that very human desire to get something on the cheap. If you start selling doughnuts at less than market price you’ll get a queue. Start selling pound coins for 50 p you’ll get a queue. The queue, the waiting list, is proof of below market price, nothing more.

The actual number of people without housing is that 8,000 or so annually (some 4,000 perhaps on any given night) across the country who are rough sleeping.

We cannot use the council or social housing waiting list as proof of the need for housing. We can - and should - use it as proof of that desire to gain something below market price.

Seriously, sell something cheap and what do you expect? That folk won’t line up for it?