Housing (London)

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Heidi Alexander

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing it. I am afraid that I cannot stay for the whole debate because I am chairing a meeting at 10.30 am, so I will miss the contributions from the Minister and, sadly, from our Front-Bench spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds).

When I sat down yesterday to think about what I might say in this debate, I realised that I have made a similar speech in each of the years I have been a Member of Parliament. I make no apology for that, because the housing crisis in London has a direct impact on my constituents. For many of them, that impact is devastating for their lives and those of their families.

The housing crisis in London is of long standing, but I believe it has been made worse by the policies of the Tory-Liberal Government. If the crisis is not addressed, it will continue to cause misery and unhappiness for many. It will damage our economic competitiveness and place enormous strain on our already overstretched transport system, as the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) has said.

Some may think of London’s housing crisis as a problem that affects only certain people—perhaps those on a particular income or of a particular age—but nothing could be further from the truth. With rocketing house prices and sky-high rents, London’s housing crisis is as much about the young professional couple in their 30s who are unable to buy their first home as about the family of five who rent an overcrowded flat from a slum landlord. The housing crisis is as much about the nurse or the firefighter who cannot afford a shared ownership property as it is about the rough sleeper who can find shelter only in a disused garage or on a bench in a railway station.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The issue affects all of us across London. I do not know whether I have yet shared with my hon. Friend the story of a firefighter and a midwife whom I met, who lived in overcrowded conditions and wanted to part-buy. When I looked into where they might get a part-ownership property, I realised that the only place they could afford to buy was somewhere out near Redbridge, and only after she had qualified as a midwife. Affordable housing in central London is social housing, in my view. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Heidi Alexander]

I do. In my experience, it is especially difficult for people with families who are trying to buy a two or three-bedroom shared-ownership property. They have to be earning in the region of £40,000 a year before they can access such properties.