Band 9 model answer
As rents climb beyond the means of low earners, debate has intensified over who should house them: the state or the market. While private developers have a role to play, I firmly believe governments must build public housing directly, because the market alone has repeatedly failed those at the bottom.
The core argument for state intervention is that profit and social need rarely align. Private builders, quite reasonably, construct whatever yields the greatest return, which almost always means luxury apartments rather than homes for cleaners or care workers. Left unchecked, the market produces glittering towers above a sea of unmet need. Public housing breaks this logic by treating shelter as a right rather than a transaction, and history confirms its value: post-war social housing programmes lifted millions of families out of slums within a generation.
Those who object usually cite cost and inefficiency, warning that state estates can decay into neglected, stigmatised ghettos. This concern is legitimate but not fatal. Well-designed, mixed-income developments that blend social and market tenants have flourished in cities such as Vienna, proving that public housing need not become a byword for failure when it is properly funded and maintained.
In conclusion, although private enterprise should continue to supply the broader market, I strongly agree that governments bear a duty to build public housing for those the market ignores. Decent shelter is too fundamental a need to be surrendered entirely to the pursuit of profit.
Examiner’s notes
- Task Response: the opinion is stated unambiguously in the introduction and reinforced in the conclusion, while the counter-argument is acknowledged and rebutted, fully satisfying an agree/disagree task.
- Coherence and Cohesion: the concession paragraph is signalled cleanly with 'Those who object usually cite…' and resolved with 'legitimate but not fatal', giving a balanced yet decisive flow.
- Lexical Resource: vivid yet formal expressions like 'a sea of unmet need', 'a byword for failure' and 'stigmatised ghettos' display the lexical range and precision of Band 9.