The Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable has said the government needs to "plan ahead" in case the housing market deteriorates and people cannot afford to make mortgage payments.
He told BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show that the government and the banking sector should prepare a "safety net" so that mortgage holders can share equity with the bank.
Mr Cable, who is also the acting leader of his party, explained that households have been building up an "unprecedented" amount of personal debt, secured against "massively inflated" house prices.
"The worry about the housing market is that if there is a serious deterioration and if people aren't able to sustain their mortgage payments we're then faced - as we were in the 1970s - with a lot of people being repossessed, put out on the streets," he stated.
According to estate agent Knight Frank, house price growth is slowing down on a global scale, with annual growth having moderated from 9.6 to 8.2 per cent in the third quarter of the year.
See Also: Property News (6705)
Date Published: 11 December 2007
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