Housing

Debate between Lord Pickles and David T C Davies

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I am shocked to hear that that is the situation in Scotland, because in England we have a far more civilised way of dealing with these matters.

John Prescott’s pathfinder programme demolished Victorian terraces across the midlands, but this Government have scrapped the wrecking ball and worked with communities, not against them. We have already brought 85,000 long-term empty properties back into use. We have reinvigorated the right to buy, reversing Labour’s savage cuts and helping social tenants get on the housing ladder.

It is a shame that Labour councillors and Labour MPs oppose the right to buy. Who is the biggest enemy of the right to buy? It is Labour-supporting unions such as Unite, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians and the GMB, waging class war against the working classes. By contrast, we are on the side of hard-working people. We have changed the rules on housing waiting lists to give priority to the armed forces and to local residents, whereas Labour doled out council housing to foreign nationals.

We are helping the vulnerable. Homelessness is half the average level it was under the last Labour Government. The average length of time households spend in temporary accommodation has fallen by a third. Housing waiting lists almost doubled under Labour, but thanks to the reforms in the Localism Act 2011, waiting lists have now fallen below the level we inherited. The Home Builders Federation notes that planning approvals for new homes are at their highest since 2007. A survey in September showed that the number of people wanting to extend their home has trebled, thanks to the flexible planning rules that we introduced to restore economic confidence, which were opposed by the Opposition.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State share my astonishment at the noises coming from Labour Members about house building levels when we all know that in the one area of the UK where Labour is actually in charge, house builders such as Redrow are pulling out? They are doing so because of the increased burden of red tape that the Labour-run Welsh Assembly is putting on the housing industry.

[Mr Pickles]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point and I shall come on to it in a few moments.

We have scrapped Labour’s regional spatial strategies, which enveloped the planning system in red tape and hindered local plan making. The number of planning appeals has fallen, meaning more local decision making and more decisions “right first time”.

At the same time, we have protected the environment. The latest official figures, produced last month, show that the number of homes built on the green belt is the lowest on record—four times lower than it was a quarter of a century ago. We have made it easier to get brownfield land back into use by allowing surplus office space to be converted into homes. A survey in September of just 15% of councils reported more than 260 different schemes under those new rights, but the Labour response, from Labour MPs and from members of the London Assembly, is to oppose those new homes.

We are not just backing large developers—we are supporting self-build by abolishing development taxes such as section 106 and the community infrastructure levy, getting the state off the backs of those who want to build their own homes. I hope that the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) will welcome that. Labour’s response has been silence, no doubt because Labour councils want to tax people to the hilt.

We need only to look at Labour’s policies, which we have heard about from the right hon. Member for Leeds Central. Labour has a five-year plan and has reinstated a national housing target of 200,000 homes a year. The previous Labour Government had a target of 240,000 homes a year, yet house building fell to its worst peacetime level since the 1920s. It is a little like the state targets for the tractors that failed to roll off the Ukrainian production lines.

How would Labour build new homes? I understand the Opposition have three policies. First, the shadow Housing Minister has called for five “new towns”. I remind her that the last Labour Prime Minister promised five new eco-towns in 2007, and then, when they were not built—perhaps in a silent, unconscious tribute to Nikita Khrushchev—increased the number from five to 10. Not a single house was built. Not one. The only thing that eco-towns built was resentment. Labour has simply dusted off and reheated its old policies under a different name. The Government are supporting locally led large scale development, with more than £500 million of investment. We have kick-started new homes in the likes of Cranbrook, Wokingham and Sherford, and Ebbsfleet will follow very soon.

Labour’s next policy is so-called land banking, as we have just heard, and is a solution to a problem that does not exist, according to the Office of Fair Trading, Savills and Kate Barker. Of the half a million units with outstanding planning permission, almost 90% have started or are working towards a start. The number of homes on stalled sites is just 59,000 units. The Get Britain Building investment fund, worth more than £500 million, is helping unlock those sites, and we have made things easier by enabling unrealistic section 106 agreements to be renegotiated, making such stalled sites viable—a move opposed every single time by the Labour party.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Pickles and David T C Davies

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

T8. It has been widely reported in the press that Ministers have been instructed by a higher authority to get rid of the green nonsense, or words to that effect. Could that welcome advice be imparted to the local authority leaders who insist on employing an army of climate change and sustainable development advisers at great expense to council tax payers?

[Mr Pickles]

The Government do not keep a register of unusual posts in local authorities. Although we are committed to sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint, and although it is up to local authorities who they employ, I would expect them to be sensible about that in these difficult times.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Pickles and David T C Davies

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

4. What progress has been made in publishing the pay and expenses of staff of non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department.

[The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)]

My Department has been at the forefront of transparency, and the Department’s public bodies will publish their senior salaries and expenses data on Friday 29 October.

[David T. C. Davies]

We know from information that has already been published that the heads of the Audit Commission spent thousands of pounds wining and dining people in a gentleman’s club. We also know that the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is chauffeur-driven in his own personal car. May I therefore congratulate the Secretary of State on his actions to ensure that those quango bosses publicise their expenses and salaries, and urge him to do more so that they are held to the same standards of transparency and scrutiny as Members of Parliament, who represent the people?

[Mr Pickles]

In fairness to the Audit Commission, my hon. Friend will want me to point out that the gentlemen’s clubs are those in the west end, not Soho. I have been concerned for some time about some of the Audit Commission’s excesses. One of my first decisions was to veto a suggested £240,000 salary for a chief executive. I was not particularly impressed by the chairman’s suggestion of a whip-round among members of the private sector that audit to top up his salary. I thought that that suggestion might well have been misinterpreted.