In this report, we set out an alternative manifesto, providing insight into how we would address various policy areas disproportionately affecting young people, such as housing, economic opportunity and prosperity. We hope to build on these solutions and provide more detail and insight in the near future. We look forward to initiating and leading discussions across these issues.

The full report can be downloaded at the end of the page.

About Polis Analysis

Polis Analysis is a provider of high-quality analysis of global politics with teams based in the heart of political capitals including London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Washington D.C. and Hong Kong. Our next generation team of experts bring a fresh and innovative approach to political analysis, which is delivered in an impartial, fact-based and accessible way. 

The political media space is a crowded field. However, media coverage of international politics is increasingly polarised and partisan in recounting stories. Even those consultancies that provide rigorous analysis instead of sensationalist media coverage deliver it to the exclusive preserve of big corporates and wealthy clients. At Polis Analysis, we do things differently. Our next generation team is uniquely placed to deliver a new way of covering global politics. We don’t simply recount political stories, we analyse them to explain their significance to your life.

Acknowledgements

The Polis Analysis would like to extend their appreciation to the dedicated individuals that played instrumental roles in the publication of this report. We thank our Founder and CEO Thomas Barton and our Advisory Board who gave invaluable guidance and made this report possible. 

We express our sincere gratitude to our team of analysts working specifically on this issue of intergenerational unfairness, whose research and insight have helped to collate a set of policy recommendations that would address many of the key issues currently facing young people. We also extend our sincere thanks to Polis Head of Marketing and Business Development, Douglas Thorkell, for the design, presentation and strategic direction of this report. 

Contents

• Foreword

• Housing

• Lifetime ISAs

• Student Loans

• Tax and National Insurance

• A Youth Sovereign Wealth Fund

• Digital Skills

• Conclusion

Foreword

As an organisation whose volunteers and readership are predominantly made up of students and young professionals, we recognise the important position young people take in society and across our political system in the UK. In our analysis of global developments, we have always endeavoured to communicate how key issues will impact our readers, placing us in a strong position to give insight into the challenges young people face in the UK, amidst a volatile political landscape.

We have chosen to become advocates to address intergenerational unfairness in the UK, as we believe that current evidence shown throughout this report demonstrates that the social contract with younger people is rupturing. Currently, the opportunities they have in life are markedly worse than those previous generations have faced. The lack of opportunities, barriers to getting onto a stable footing in life and the comparatively lower support available to younger generations, means we are straying away from the principle of constant betterment of society. 

Inaction and a lack of long-term consideration in many areas means that bold action is required for this intergenerational inequality deficit to be addressed. We call on all political parties to work towards policies to give younger generations the same opportunities available to previous generations, regardless of their political affiliation. This would allow them to gain a better stake in society, improving their long-term prospects. Given how political engagement and faith in politics are so low and continuing to decline among young people, giving young people an effective stake in political discussions and society is key to maintaining faith in democracy and governance itself, making it an important issue across the political spectrum.

In this report, we set out an alternative manifesto, providing insight into how we would address these inequalities, across a variety of policy areas, and showing how we intend to advocate for issues relevant to young people. We hope to build on these and provide more details in the near future, and we look forward to initiating and leading discussions across these issues. 

Thomas Barton

Founder and CEO

Housing

Key proposals:

• A rules-based planning system to allow for housing supply to increase. 

• Redefining the greenbelt to account for urban and rural development over the past 75 years. 

• Allow banks to use someone’s history of rental payments as evidence of their eligibility for a mortgage. 

Homeownership is a key factor tied to how “well off” people feel, causing knockon effects on someone’s confidence in the economy and building their position in society. Despite this, only 12% of family units aged 19-29 own their own home, according to data from the Resolution Foundation. Demand currently far exceeds supply, with only an average of 187,000 homes built per year, far below the 312,000 per year recommended in the Barker Review 2004 (Barker 2004), with house prices nearly tripling since 1975 when adjusted for inflation, according to data from Nationwide (AllAgents 2024)

This lack of supply largely comes from the fact that the current planning system has remained unchanged since the Town and County Planning Act 1947, leading to homebuilding rates being half of what they were before World War II (Breach and Watling 2023). This case-by-case system is very dependent on the discretion of local councillors, meaning it is often possible for compliant proposals to be rejected, meaning fewer housebuilding projects get approved. This has knock-on effects on supply too, as the lack of clarity and certainty for developers disincentivises them from starting new projects, in fear they will lose any sunk cost if a sound proposal is eventually rejected. A more rules-based planning system would provide more confidence to housing developers and allow supply to meet demand, so more young people can afford to get onto the housing ladder. 

Alongside this planning reform, the second main area for improvement is in greenbelt boundaries. These were introduced alongside the Town and County Planning Act, intending to prevent urban sprawl and protect the countryside. However, many parts of the greenbelt across the UK are currently unused brownfield land, and this land classification system has not been able to adapt to the level of population and price growth seen in the past 75 years. Therefore, a review of greenbelt land is needed, with these boundaries to be more clearly defined to allow for developments where they do not pose a threat to the countryside. 

Thirdly, the threshold of evidence necessary to receive a mortgage from a bank is arbitrarily high. Under the current system, monthly rental payments in many parts of the country exceed the cost of monthly mortgage payments, but as their salaries do not meet the threshold necessary for evidence to receive a mortgage, they cannot get one. Therefore, as a solution to this, we would call for banks to be able to use a history of someone’s rental payments as evidence towards whether someone is eligible for a mortgage. As an additional safety net, a guarantor system through a parent/relative could help give more confidence to lenders while also increasing access to mortgages, similar to what is used currently in the rental market.

Lifetime ISAs

Key proposals:

•       Reduce the penalty withdrawal fee for people withdrawing funds from their Lifetime ISAs, to minimise the loss in their own savings. 

•       Increase the threshold for first homes under the Lifetime ISA system to account for recent inflation and increase in house prices, to a figure in the region of £550,000. 

A Lifetime ISA (Investment Savings Account) allows young people to save for later in life or support them in buying their first home. Under the current system, you can put £4,000 per year into your Lifetime ISA (UK Government 2024) between the ages of 18 and 40, and the government will add 25% to these savings, meaning this could be up to £1,000 per year. When you choose to purchase your first home or withdraw funds from it, you are charged a 25% withdrawal penalty fee, unless the house you intend to purchase using it has a value of less than £450,000, or you meet other specific conditions. 

However, given that the current average house price across many parts of the UK is nearing this £450,000 limit, or exceeding it in the case of London (Emery 2024), this means that paying the withdrawal penalty is becoming more common for those purchasing their first home with the Lifetime ISA, meaning they lose out on the bonus from the government as well as some of their own savings. Given that the threshold for Lifetime ISAs has been unchanged since their introduction in 2017, this means that as the average house price has increased from £208,000 in 2017 to £257,443 presently [6], an increasing number of firsttime buyers are required to pay the penalty withdrawal fee. 

Therefore, we would advocate for a slight reduction in the penalty fee, to limit the effect that this has on a young person’s own savings, alongside an increase in the threshold of the Lifetime ISA to account for inflation since its introduction. For example, a threshold in the region of £550,000 would be aligned with the current average house prices and also take into account recent inflation, allowing young people to better utilise this type of account to save up for their first home. 

Student Loans

Key proposals:

• Lower student loan interest rates so they are closer to market rates.

• Lower the duration of the repayment period and increase the income threshold at which a graduate starts making repayments.

• Introduce a cap on cumulative student loan repayments. 

Student loans can be a lifeline for some students, so changes made to certain thresholds and duration of loan repayments can severely impact their financial well-being while at university and after graduation. Under the new system introduced in 2023, students will now have a smaller threshold until they have to repay their student loans, with it decreasing from £27,295 to £25,000 (Booth 2024). Additionally, the duration of loan repayments has been now extended by a decade, rising from 30 years to 40 years, meaning that students may be forced into paying their student loans much earlier and for much longer, leading to greater financial hardship.

Looking further into the issue, a report by the Financial Times showed that middle earners would have to pay between £54,000 and £56,000 (Borrett and Foster 2024), resulting in a larger amount of their income being directed to loan payments. In contrast, high earners may eventually pay even less than under the previous system as the interest rates are lowered due to a rise in inflation. This would mean that some high earners could pay off their loans quicker and avoid the build-up of interest on their student loans, whereas many low and middleincome earners would end up paying more. 

Effectively, this newly restructured student loan system means young people will be burdened to a greater extent than previous generations, paying off higher amounts of debt for longer, paying interest rates on these far higher than market rates. Therefore, we would advocate for lowering student loan interest rates, to a rate closer to the current market rate, as well as lowering the duration of loan repayments, to resolve a student loan system which only harms low and middleincome graduates. Along with this, we support increasing the income threshold rate, so that graduates can get on a stable footing in life before they start making loan repayments. Alternatively, a cap on cumulative student loan repayments could also result in a fairer and clearer system for graduates.

Tax and National Insurance

Key proposal:

• Reduce taxes for young workers, through unfreezing lower income tax thresholds or further reducing National Insurance payments

Since April 2021, income tax brackets have been frozen, with these thresholds not eligible for alteration until the 2027-28 financial year. According to a report by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), when accounting for CPI inflation, these measures would push 3.2 million people into paying income tax, and 2.1 million people would end up paying higher rates (Office of Budget Responsibility 2023). Therefore, due to high inflation in the past three years, this means that far more young workers and graduates are paying income tax, whereas if these brackets had shifted, they potentially would not have been. Alongside this, older and wealthier generations, who are less dependent on income and more so on their wealth receive far less of a burden, with this intergenerational disparity being exacerbated by the fact that there have been commitments across the political spectrum, to shield pensions from being taxed. 

To address this, there are various options to reduce the disparity in tax burdens across generations. Firstly, simply raising the lower income tax thresholds would allow young workers to accumulate more income without being taxed, improving their ability to save and gain a stronger financial footing. Alongside this, continuing to lower National Insurance payments could also contribute towards addressing this. To mitigate the loss in tax revenue from this, a wealth tax could contribute towards this, while also addressing the intergenerational disparity in taxes to some extent.

A Youth Sovereign Wealth Fund

Key proposals:

•       Create a sovereign wealth fund with a starting investment of £10 billion aimed at generating wealth, with investments aimed at benefitting young people in the long-term.

•       Build a diverse portfolio to incentivise more investors to invest in domestic projects with low-risk levels to gain investment from the pension fund.

Sovereign Wealth Funds have grown to be vital assets to governments worldwide in securing long-term sustainable growth for future generations. As of February 2023, Sovereign wealth funds manage $11.3 trillion of assets worldwide, growing tenfold from a decade prior (World Economic Forum, 2023). This substantial growth has been utilised by governments to bridge the intergenerational gap, as seen with Australia’s Future Fund which, as of 2017, had reported to be worth double the amount invested, growing from A$60.5 billion to A$130 billion (International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds 2017). Ireland has followed suit, announcing that its Future Ireland Fund was to be set up in October 2023, targeted to be worth up to €100 billion in the mid-2030s (Campbell 2023).

However, the majority of Sovereign Wealth Funds worldwide have been funded by wealth generated by single commodities, primarily centred around the production of oil and gas. With 5 of the largest 10 Sovereign Wealth Funds being funded by oil and gas and the remaining 5 residing in the large economic powerhouses of Singapore, China and Hong Kong, any Sovereign Wealth Fund started in the UK must approach this differently. 

The UK should use a combination of both private and public investors to generate money to invest in projects that could benefit younger generations. A report by the Financial Times suggests that by targeting market failures and creating a diverse portfolio of co-investment opportunities, initial capital can be raised through both pensions and other public capital reserves and private investors to reinvest into infrastructure that could target future issues, such as housing and energy (Gordon 2024). This would help alleviate the burden of the budget in future years with growth in the wealth fund and can allow future investment projects to be sustainable and effective.

Digital Skills

Key proposal:

• Improve funding and awareness of improving digital skills, so that younger generations can become better prepared to protect themselves from malign digital actors. 

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), misinformation and disinformation are projected to be the most severe risk facing the world over the next two years, and the fifth largest over the next 10 (World Economic Forum 2024). With deepfake videos increasing by 550% from 2019-2023 (Home Security Heroes 2023), and a recent paper from Harvard Kennedy School’s Misinformation Review found nearly 50% of surveyed individuals to exhibit “no improvement over chance” when asked to separate fact from opinion (Mettler and Mondak 2024), growing digital dangers undeniably represent a threat to all generations. Yet a study from the Center for Digital Hate showed that 13-17 years were most likely to believe in conspiracy theories (Miller 2024), and there is ever-increasing evidence of a strong correlation between smartphones and declining mental health, addiction, and perceived social isolation, it is imperative that today’s youth are provided with the digital skills to protect themselves from malign digital actors.

As Polis Analysis continues to warn, while holes remain in legislation such as the Online Safety Act and the National Security Act, and social media companies refuse to pay adequate attention to removing these dangers from their platforms, digital competency must be improved to keep children and adults alike safe online (Polis Analysis 2024). Teaching skills such as image backsourcing, image verification, fact-claim differentiation, and watermarking must become integrated into education from an early age, while initiatives similar to the University of Cambridge’s 15-minute Bad News Game (University of Cambridge 2024) must receive appropriate financial backing from both the UK Government and Silicon Valley. With technology continually evolving, and 91% of children possessing a phone by the age of 14 (Miller 2023), it is imperative that healthy digital habits are ingrained into both old and young. 

Conclusion

A common thread throughout all these issues is that past inaction and a lack of consideration for long-term factors across various policy areas is contributing to a situation where the opportunities and prospects for younger generations are markedly worse than for past generations and that a re-think across these policy areas is needed to address them properly, and the tools used to address these are not unique to any political ideology, signalling that it should be something the government should be working towards regardless of who is in power following the election. 

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