Text 4

　　When the governmenttalks about infrastructure contributing to the economy the focus is usually onroads, railways, broadband and energy. Housing is seldom mentioned.

　　Why is that? To someextent the housing sector must shoulder the blame. We have not been good atcommunicating the real value that housing can contribute to economic growth.Then there is the scale of the typical housing project. It is hard to shove forattention among multibillion-pound infrastructure project, so it is inevitablethat the attention is focused elsewhere. But perhaps the most significantreason is that the issue has always been so politically charged.

　　Nevertheless, theaffordable housing situation is desperate. Waiting lists increase all the timeand we are simply not building enough new homes.

　　The comprehensivespending review offers an opportunity for the government to help rectify this.It needs to put historical prejudices to one side and take some steps toaddress our urgent housing need.

　　There are someindications that it is preparing to do just that. The communities minister, DonFoster, has hinted that George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, mayintroduce more flexibility to the current cap on the amount that local authoritiescan borrow against their housing stock debt. Evidence shows that 60,000 extranew homes could be built over the next five years if the cap were lifted,increasing GDP by 0.6%.

　　Ministers should alsolook at creating greater certainty in the rental environment, which would havea significant impact on the ability of registered providers to fund newdevelopments from revenues.

　　But it is not justdown to the government. While these measures would be welcome in the shortterm, we must face up to the fact that the existing ￡4.5bn programme of grantsto fund new affordable housing, set to expire in 2015,is unlikely to beextended beyond then. The Labour party has recently announced that it willretain a large part of the coalition’s spending plans if returns to power. Thehousing sector needs to accept that we are very unlikely to ever return to eraof large-scale public grants. We need to adjust to this changing climate.

　　36. Theauthor believes that the housing sector__

　　[A]has attracted much attention

　　[B] involves certainpolitical factors

　　[C]shoulders too much responsibility

　　[D]has lost its real value in economy

　　37. It can belearned that affordable housing has__

　　[A]increased its home supply

　　[B]offered spending opportunities

　　[C] suffered government biases

　　[D]disappointed the government

　　38. Accordingto Paragraph 5,George Osborne may_______.

　　[A] allow greater governmentdebt for housing

　　[B]stop local authorities from building homes

　　[C]prepare to reduce housing stock debt

　　[D]release a lifted GDP growth forecast

　　39. It can beinferred that a stable rental environment would_______.

　　[A]lowerthe costs of registered providers

　　[B]lessenthe impact of government interference

　　[C]contribute to funding newdevelopments

　　[D]relievethe ministers of responsibilities

　　40. Theauthor believes that after 2015,the government may______.

　　[A]implement more policies to support housing

　　[B]review the need for large-scale public grants

　　[C]renew the affordable housing grants programme

　　[D]stop generous funding to the housing sector