“People are unable to access home ownership.”

Based on my research, the claim that "people are unable to access home ownership" is well-supported by official statistics and parliamentary findings as of the speech date in June 2026. **Key evidence:** 1. **Declining ownership rates:** Home ownership in England peaked at 71% in 2003 and fell to 62.5% by the 2021 Census. The English Housing Survey for 2024-25 found owner occupation at 65% of households — still below historical highs. 2. **Affordability crisis:** ONS data shows that in 2025, the median home in England cost 7.6 times median annual earnings (£300,000 vs. £39,300), well above the 5x affordability threshold. In London, the ratio was 10.6. Only 7% of local authority areas (23 out of 318) had homes selling for less than five times full-time earnings. 3. **Parliamentary confirmation:** A 2026 parliamentary select committee report on "Affordability of Home Ownership" explicitly concluded: "Many people in England who want to buy a home of their own are unable to do so because homes in this country are simply not affordable enough." The report also noted that a person's chances of owning a home are now largely determined by whether their parents own a home and can help them. 4. **First-time buyer barriers:** The Building Societies Association (BSA, July 2025) found approximately 2.2 million "missing first-time buyers" since 2006 — people who would have been expected to buy but haven't. 33% of renters aged 25-44 said they don't think they will ever own a home. The Skipton Group Home Affordability Index found only about 12.1% of potential first-time buyers could afford the average first-time buyer home in their local area. 5. **Modest improvement noted:** Affordability has been gradually improving since 2021 (earnings growing faster than house prices), and there were 967,000 recent first-time buyers in England in 2024-25. However, the overall picture remains one of significant barriers. The claim is a broad generalization — clearly not *all* people are unable to access home ownership (65% of households are owner-occupiers) — but in the speech context ("people unable to have the security of their own home or even get on to the housing ladder"), it is clearly meant to describe the existence of a significant affordability problem preventing many would-be buyers from purchasing homes. This is strongly corroborated by official data and cross-party parliamentary findings. **Sources:** - ONS, "Housing affordability in England and Wales: 2025" — https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/2025 - Parliament UK, "Affordability of Home Ownership" select committee report — https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5902/cmselect/cmcomloc/41/report.html - English Housing Survey 2024-25, Headline Report — https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6930595d4bedc0e762303ffa/2024-25_EHS_Headline_Report.pdf - GOV.UK, English Housing Survey 2024-25, Chapter 3: Housing history and future housing — https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/chapters-for-english-housing-survey-2024-to-2025-headline-findings-on-demographics-and-household-resilience/chapter-3-housing-history-and-future-housing - Building Societies Association, "Generation Stuck" press release (July 2025) — https://www.bsa.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/generation-stuck-majority-of-25-44-year-old-renters-thought-they-would-own-a-home-by-now - Skipton Group Home Affordability Index — https://www.skiptongroup.com/media-centre/news/the-scale-of-lost-opportunity-for-first-time-buyers/