Flooding
Debate between Lord Pickles and Jake Berry(10 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Mr Pickles
The Treasury is taking an enormous interest in the promises that Ministers are making from the Dispatch Box. Even when representatives of the Treasury are not physically in the room, their presence is always felt.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State ensure that local Environment Agency workers have the ability to team up with farmers, particularly to work on catchment area solutions such as tree planting? Will he also ensure that the agency takes some of the reported £2.4 million that it has spent on public relations services and puts it into the Rossendale valley to prevent flooding on the River Irwell, the River Darwen and the River Ogden?
Mr Pickles
Many hon. Members have made that point about local solutions. We are looking for an integrated approach from local drainage boards, local authorities and the Environment Agency to deal with these problems. It is often the people on the ground who understand the problems better.
Housing
Debate between Lord Pickles and Jake Berry(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Pickles
I am coming to supply in a moment. The hon. Gentleman should be a little patient.
Labour might not have supported the scheme, but Santander has said that Help to Buy has been
“a major cause of increased confidence in the housing market.”
We are also helping the less well-off. More than 150,000 new affordable homes have been built in England in the past three years, assisted by our £20 billion affordable housing programme. Thanks to our reforms to the Housing Revenue Account, more council housing has been built in the three years of this Government than in all the 13 years of the previous Labour Government.
Jake Berry
As my right hon. Friend is on the subject of social housing, perhaps he could also confirm to the House that the previous Government, after 13 years, left us with 421,000 fewer social homes than when they took office.
Mr Pickles
My hon. Friend is exactly right, and my speech will confirm that. The social housing stock on Labour’s watch shrunk by 420,000.