Most of what can be said about the government’s housing rescue package has already been said. The 12-month stamp-duty holiday on properties up to £175,000 (up from the normal £125,000) was probably the minimum the Treasury could get away with.

Only the most jaundiced would say that this, along with the government’s other measures on shared equity, social housing and avoiding repossessions, will make no difference. On the other hand, only extreme optimists would conclude these measures on their own will succeed in stabilising the market. I am in neither camp.

One long-term positive result could be that the “reentry” into a normal stamp-duty regime in a year’s time coincides with a fundamental reform of the tax. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and others have called for a shift to a marginal system of stamp duty. The problem with the tax at present is that each rate applies to the whole value, creating distorting jumps. So, while the tax on a £500,001 property is a shade above £20,000, that on a £500,000 house is just £15,000.

That is for another day. Meanwhile, does the government have any shots left in the locker when it comes to helping with housing? Almost everybody agrees that the problem lies with the credit crunch and the closure of much of the wholesale funding route for lenders. Without this, house prices would have flattened rather than fallen and mortgage lending would have eased back, not slid alarmingly.

The Treasury still has time to respond to the final recommendations of Sir James Crosby when he reports in time for next month’s prebudget report. It could be that he comes out with a strong recommendation for the government to kick-start the mortgage markets by offering an implicit guarantee for new mortgage-backed securities, by means of the Bank of England accepting them as collateral.

There is no appetite for that at the Bank, however, which is already piling up large quantities of pre2008 securities under its special liquidity scheme. It is hard to know exactly what the chancellor is thinking these days, but I do not detect much enthusiasm at the Treasury, either. Had ministers wanted, they could have wheeled out such a kick-start last week. The fact they did not suggests it might not happen.

home.economics@sunday-times.co.uk

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