Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Wes Streeting

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I can give my right hon. Friend the assurance that the Government want people who work hard and want to buy their own home to enjoy the security of owning their own home. The equity loan scheme will last until 2020, which should support another 120,000 households in Basingstoke and elsewhere to get on to, and up, the housing ladder. In addition, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in his recent Budget, the Help to Buy ISA is expected to help over 1 million first-time buyers save for a deposit.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

The Government’s policies were not popular in every part of the country, in particular in my constituency. May I therefore ask the Minister, as this has been a week for U-turns, to listen to the National Housing Federation, the CBI and the Institute for Fiscal Studies and revisit right to buy for housing association stock, which will lead to a decrease in the availability of affordable homes for rent, and to deal instead with the fundamental problem of housing supply?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House. This Government are firmly on the side of those people who want the right to buy their own properties, and that includes extending the right to buy to housing association properties. Perhaps he will agree with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who published a report with the Institute for Public Policy Research in recent years calling on his party to do exactly the same thing.