When the government talks about infrastructure contributing to the economy the focus is usually on roads, railways, broadband and energy. Housing is seldom mentioned.

    Why is that? To some extent the housing sector must shoulder the blame. We have not been good at communicating 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 for attention among multibillion-pound infrastructure project, so it is inevitable that the attention is focused elsewhere. But perhaps the most significant reason is that the issue has always been so politically charged.

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

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

     There are some indications that it is preparing to do just that. The communities minister, Don Foster, has hinted that George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, may introduce more flexibility to the current cap on the amount that local authorities can borrow against their housing stock debt. Evidence shows that 60,000 extra new homes could be built over the next five years if the cap were lifted, increasing GDP by 0.6%.

    Ministers should also look at creating greater certainty in the rental environment, which would have a significant impact on the ability of registered providers to fund new developments from revenues.

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

    While the government’s commitment to long-term funding may have changed, the very pressing for more affordable housing is real and is not going away.

答案精析：根据关键词人名George Osborne可定位到第五段第二句。乔治·奥斯本将采取更灵活的政策来提高政府在住房上的借债（borrow against their housing stock debt）的借债上限（current gap），即可以借更多债务用于住房方面，与A项的greater government debt含义相同，因此选择A项。

错项排除：政府要解决住房问题不可能通过减少建房的方式，B项与原文表述相反，故排除。C项与A项表达的含义相反，与原文相悖，因此排除。D项的growth forecast在原文中对应的主语是借债这一方式，而非对应奥斯本，故排除。