Lunchtime news March 27

Several papers including the Financial Times report comments by Bank of England governor Mervyn King that the housing market is slowing down at last because of higher interest rates. King also told MPs there were no signs of the US sub-prime crisis spreading to the UK.

He was speaking after the latest stats on mortgage approvals showed a third successive monthly fall. They were 5% down on February 2006.

The Nationwide agreed as it published figures showing house price inflation slowing to an annual rate of 9.3% in March. Prices have risen 0.4% a month this year compared to 1.1% a month in the last three months of 2006.

The Land Registry said prices rose 1% in February, taking the annual rate to 8.5%.

A real debate about housing policy should follow the Hills review, not an attack on security of tenure, says Shelter’s Adam Sampson in Society Guardian.

Yesterday’s rise in child poverty features heavily in today’s papers. For The Guardian it’s a ‘blow for Brown’, while the Financial Times says it has ‘forced the government to abandon as futile its strategy of raising social security payments to ensure poor families’ incomes keep pace with the rest of society’.

The Department of Work and Pensions has published new research [downloads PDF] into the links between rents, housing benefit and work incentives.

The Housing Corporation has posted three new publications aimed at making regulation more transparent.