Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Brandon Lewis
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Developers should be able to look at a local plan and have confidence that they can develop where land is allocated in that plan, but, as he rightly says, outside that they should find it the most difficult thing in the world to do if they have not got agreement with the local authority. It is absolutely right that his local authority has its local plan in place, and I encourage villages in the area and elsewhere to look at neighbourhood planning, to give even further protection to the areas over which people want to have control.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister knows that of course we want local communities to be able to protect their environment when they are concerned about it, but the balance must be right—we need homes for people in this country today. There is a national crisis. We have young people in debt; thanks to the Liberal Democrats, some graduates are £42,000 in debt. Who is going to lend them the money? And where are the houses coming from?
Brandon Lewis
I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the previous Government’s top-down approach meant that everybody spent so much time arguing about numbers that very few of them got enough houses built, and that led to the position in which we inherited the lowest level of house building this country has seen since about 1923—that is a disgrace. Trusting local people to make the right decisions for their areas is paying dividends. In the last year, 2014, we saw an almost record level of 253,000 homes getting planning permission, proving that this Government are right: trusting local people to make local decisions is the way forward.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Brandon Lewis(9 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
We are making excellent progress in helping to deliver large-scale housing sites. Through long-term loans for infrastructure, capacity funding and brokerage, we have helped unlock or accelerate more than 90,000 homes to date, and a further 200,000 homes could be unlocked or accelerated on sites shortlisted for investment and wider support.
Mr Sheerman
There are so many hard-working people in this country, including many firefighters, who would listen to that reply and not be able to believe the complacency. We have a Department with no leadership, no vision and no ambition, when we need a million new homes for our elderly people and for our young people, who have no chance of a home. This Government will face the wrath of those people at the next general election.
Brandon Lewis
As before, I am sure there was a question in there somewhere. [Interruption.] And the audience agree. I find the hon. Gentleman’s follow-up point slightly bizarre, in the sense that this Government have provided roughly 700,000 new homes in the past four or five years, including more council houses than were built in the entire period of the previous Labour Government.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Brandon Lewis(10 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Brandon Lewis
I do not entirely agree. I believe that people who aspire to own their own home should have the opportunity to do so if they can afford it, because it allows them to have the pride of ownership not just in their home, but in their street and their neighbourhood.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
It is sad not to have Jim Dobbin jumping up and down today, as he usually did in this House. He was a man of courage. He would have joined me in saying that we need courage in facing the lack of good social housing. I have always been in favour of the right to buy, as long as the homes are superseded by more social housing. Is it not true that some Government some time must have the courage to say, “We will not meet housing need in this country—social or private—until we build on some of our green belt”?
Brandon Lewis
I agree with some of what the hon. Gentleman said, but I do not think that we need to go down the line of his final few comments. From April 2012 to June 2014, almost 3,700 homes have been started on site or acquired with the £514 million that has been generated by additional sales through the reinvigorated right to buy. The additional receipts that are raised by local authority right-to-buy sales are now used directly to fund homes for affordable rent, thanks to the changes that the Government have made.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Brandon Lewis
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a very fair point. Councils should look to curtail the £2 billion of fraud and error in the system, and the £2 billion of uncollected council tax, to make sure that they are able to provide the front-line services that residents rightly deserve.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that the problem is not only half-empty and understaffed children’s centres, but the fact that children’s services in charge of child protection are not able to fulfil that function fully enough?
Brandon Lewis
Again, I would say to the hon. Gentleman that if the local authority in his area is making bad decisions about where its funding goes, he should put pressure on it, and I am very happy to help him to do so.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Brandon Lewis
Brandon Lewis
Yes. Importantly, with local district auditors, we have clear, local accountability to ensure that scandals such as Labour-run Corby’s £47 million Cube simply do not go unnoticed by residents.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Minister aware that the Audit Commission has fine, dedicated staff, many of whom have laboured under the uncertainty of not knowing whether they would have employment in future? What are we doing to look after those very good staff? Is he not aware that local auditors are very often more prone to corruption? How will he deal with that?
Brandon Lewis
That is an extraordinary comment to make about local external auditors, who have already shown local council savings of around 40%, which is part of the savings we can see for local councils, which they need to make. I met the new chairman of the Audit Commission recently. He is working with the teams, which are working well, towards the wind-down that will save this country around £650 million.