Welcome to Refresh – a series of comment pieces by young people, for young people, to provide a free-market response to Britain's biggest issues ​

The Conservative Party has been adept at using housing policy to speak to voters’ aspirations for a better life, prompting a “virtuous cycle” which has led it to semi-permanent governance. From Harold Macmillan’s 300,000 new homes a year, to Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy, the world’s most successful political party has understood that owning a home makes families strong and people prouder. Property is earned. It gives people something to work towards and provides a sense of security when achieved.

But what if the Conservatives abandon their belief in the property-owning democracy? That’s what’s happening with the spread of detested leasehold tenure. Between July 2017 and 2018, new-build leasehold sales represented 44 per cent of all new-build by value and 38 per cent by number of properties.

With our growing population, combined with a puny 3 per cent foreign buyers’ levy showing government is too timid about demand-side intervention, developers are scaling up – and cashing in. Leasehold apartment blocks are taking over, especially in London and the southeast. The picture isn’t rosier elsewhere. The Centre for Policy Studies anticipates that by 2020 the ruling party will have presided over the lowest level of housebuilding of any decade since the Second World War.