The Stats of the Nation: Sex, drugs and empty homes

What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.

In the third episode, we’re searching for answers to these questions:

Are there really 700,000 empty homes that could be used to solve the housing crisis?

Does the NHS pay less for drugs than health services in other countries?

Is violent crime going up or down?

Is the UK in the midst of a fertility crisis?

Get in touch if you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at: [email protected]

Contributors:

Dr Huseyin Naci, Associate Professor and Director the Pharmaceutical Policy Lab at the London School of Economics

Professor Jennifer Dowd, deputy director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford

Credits:

Presenter: Tim Harford

Reporters: Lizzy McNeill and Nathan Gower

Producers: Katie Solleveld and Charlotte McDonald

Series producer: Tom Colls

Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele

Sound mix: Sarah Hockley and James Beard

Editor: Richard Vadon