Housing (London)

Debate between Emily Thornberry and Nick Boles

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Nick Boles)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing this debate, which is of vital importance to her constituents and the constituents of many Members of Parliament in London.

It makes a great change for me, as Planning Minister, to face a chorus of opposition from Labour Members. Normally in such debates, I face a chorus of opposition from my own colleagues in the Conservative party. The present position, I must say, is the more comfortable one, though that is not to say that the opposition has not been well argued or passionately felt.

The debate was a fascinating insight into how this House’s proceedings would be improved if 70% of Members were women. With, I think, the exception of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), we heard speeches that were passionate but reasonable and that were inquiring and seeking to find the truth, rather than ones that were just delivering a predictable political rant. No doubt we would all be better off if that happened more often.

[Emily Thornberry]

I register my objection to the Minister’s description of my speech as not being a political rant, because it most definitely was.

[Nick Boles]

I unreservedly withdraw that slight to the hon. Lady’s political passion.

The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead asked a number of quite searching questions, but I must be honest: I do not have the time to answer them. Nor am I the Housing Minister, so I do not have the expertise. We shall write to her, however, to give her the full answers she deserves and copy in all hon. Members who have spoken today, but I fear that I will not be able to answer her questions fully right now.

The debate is a fascinating and challenging one. Of course no one in this House, on either side, denies that not just in London but most acutely in London this country faces a housing crisis. It is a subject to which I have given a great deal of attention and energy in the short time that I have been Planning Minister. It is important to understand that houses take a while to build. In our planning system, they take even longer to secure consent for. It is therefore not unfair to say that the seeds of most of what is happening now were laid several years ago.

The one thing that I missed in the excellent speeches of all the Opposition Members was any sense of responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in, or any sense of recognition that the seeds of the current crisis were sown not after May 2010 but decades ago, and they certainly have not been changed since.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

indicated dissent.

[Nick Boles]

Opposition Members protest from a sedentary position, but they need to ask themselves why most of them here today, who were part of the previous Government as Ministers or were elected under that Government, did not persuade their Government to introduce rent controls. I think there is a good reason why they did not persuade their Government to do so: it is unclear from the evidence that rent controls or even rent stabilisation, the arguments in favour of which we all understand, will make happen what we know needs to happen, which is to increase the number of new housing units.

If we say to investors who are going to build houses for rent that the amount they can put up rent by is going to be controlled, their ability to compete with other investors who are going to build houses for sale, which are, after all, a large proportion of the market, will be restricted. Their ability to bid at the same prices as people who are going to build flats for sale will be reduced. Then we would have to start controlling the ability of people who were going to build houses for sale to enable competition with people who would not be able to put rents up.