Having seen David Attenborough present the Horizon special the other night it seem obvious that the UK government needs to set a target population for the country to work towards. Somewhere between 50 - 60 million seems about right. Achieving the target might take a generation but policy should be bent towards the goal starting with a look at tax and benefits that relate to children other than the first.
Further efforts need to be made toward addressing our high levels of teenage pregnancy, indeed education towards making it the norm for couples to wait until at least the age of 25 would almost certainly lead to better parenting.
The overall population target should be adopted at regional level by adopting the current policy towards new housing development. Instead of expanding the housing stock a mechanism should be developed to promote the building of new energy efficient houses while simultaneously redeveloping older houses where it is not economical to bring them up to modern building standards. Maybe there is an opportunity to resolve the inequity of Stamp Duty at the same time?
Q: how to make it economically desirable to demolish old energy-inefficient houses?
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