Building Safety

Eddie Hughes Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady is right—I am concerned about the position of those leaseholders, and we will work closely with the Treasury to see whether there is a way forward. There are already examples of building owners or private finance providers bringing forward low or zero-interest loans, on a hardship basis, to help individuals who are on low incomes or without savings to make the payments required to remediate their buildings. There may be a role for the Government in ensuring that that works, that the loans are affordable, and that it is done as quickly as possible.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I remain a proud member of the Chartered Institute of Building. Will the Secretary of State endorse the work of the CIOB in driving up standards in construction to ensure that we build safer buildings in the future, not least with its code of quality management, which was published in September last year?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am happy to endorse that work. Our building safety regime in this country is flawed in many respects, and decades of neglect now need to be addressed. That will have to work through all parts of the system, whether Government or the construction sector, and we must ensure that builders and developers pay far more attention to quality and safety than they have done in the past. We have recently seen disturbing reports, such as the independent report on Persimmon that was published at the end of last year, and action is now required from the whole construction industry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eddie Hughes Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

We believe in home ownership. The right to buy has helped 2 million people get on the housing ladder. Since 2010, nearly 600,000 households have been helped to purchase a home through either right to buy or help to buy, and we are ensuring that the money from the right to buy is helping more homes to be built. In fact, we have sold 119,000 homes, which has helped to build 140,000 more homes. That is what we will continue to do—allow people to own their own homes and support all people at every stage of life in every home they need.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

The Minister is completely right that the housing supply jigsaw has many pieces, so we will continue to pump billions of pounds into housing associations such as Walsall Housing Group in my constituency, which has an innovative partnership with Lovell to build 250 mixed tenure houses on the former Caparo engineering works, a brownfield site. Is that the future?

[Esther McVey]

It certainly is. My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head, and he has a lot of expertise in this area. As I have said, our party is tenure-blind, and we help people along the steps to ownership, to get the house they need at the time they need it, knowing that most people want to own their own home.