They own land, give them... oh, hang on...

Spotted by Bob E at the BBC:

Housing Minister Mark Prisk said that, "with over three million people relying on the private rented sector for their housing needs, we are determined to attract new players to the market and pull out all the stops to get Britain building".

"That's why we're offering £10bn in loan guarantees to provide up to 15,000 new homes for rent, putting £19.5bn public and private funding into an affordable homes programme..."

Er, we can see a bit of a snag here, sir, you've decided how much taxpayers' money you'd like to throw at them, but they don't actually own any land yet..

"... and why we've identified enough formerly-used surplus public sector land to sell for 100,000 new homes."

Ah, thanks for the clarification, sir. What, with the government having that £29.5 billion to spare and enough land for 100,000 homes, it could of course just build those 100,000 homes itself for under £10 billion, saving the taxpayer about £20 billion, but I'm sure there's a very good reason why giving the private sector three times as much is a better idea. Sir.