Alison Seabeck
Main Page: Alison Seabeck (Labour - Plymouth, Moor View)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Kris Hopkins)
It is a pleasure to stand here and have the opportunity to talk about a vital part of our economy—this country’s housing industry. The industry is growing in strength and confidence. More homes have been built since 2007—a 31% increase in new homes in the last year alone. Planning consents have reached 216,000 in the last year.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
On a point of clarification, will the Minister explain the basis of the figures he has just provided to show that more homes have been built since 2007? What is the source of that information?
Kris Hopkins
What we do is add up all the numbers of houses that have been built; and more have been built since 2007. As I said, planning consents have now reached 216,000, and the top 10 building companies are at their maximum capacity and are planning to grow a further 15% in the next year.
Mr Raynsford
I did indeed. I say to the hon. Gentleman that given that output is currently averaging just 112,000 homes a year, a target of 200,000 represents a very substantial increase. We can have an academic debate about whether that is enough, but the harsh reality, which his party should not have ignored, is the total failure of this Government to deliver anything near the level required. The output number has to be doubled, and I hope he will support a Labour Government when they are in power—if he is still around—and are delivering to that target.
The Minister, like his predecessor bar one, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), loves to project future increases in numbers, so we hear about 170,000 affordable homes, for example. The right hon. Gentleman used to quote that figure, and we heard it from the Minister today. Let me just give the actual figures on affordable homes started by this Government: in 2010—the third and fourth quarters—they started 10,990; in 2011, they started 25,000; in 2012, they started 20,000; in 2013, they started 24,000; and in 2014—
Mr Raynsford
And in the first quarter of 2014, the Government have started 5,900. Their own records show that, in the 15 quarters for which they have been in power, they have started 86,810 affordable homes. So let us hear no more boasting about unrealistic targets for how the Government are going to start all these homes, given that they have lamentably failed to deliver them.
Alison Seabeck
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does he share my concern that the Minister is not here to answer the questions he has just posed on those figures? The Minister did not explain that he was going to leave early.
Mr Raynsford
I am very grateful for that intervention, and I suspect I shall be in deep trouble tonight for my failure to give way earlier. My hon. Friend makes a very valid point about the absence of the Minister. I hope he is away for only a short time, because I am sure he will benefit from hearing some of the comments I am going to make in the latter part of my speech.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
I start by making my usual declaration of an indirect interest, which relates to the entry in the register of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford).
I agree with the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on the need for a mix of new housing, including housing for people who are retiring. However, I disagree with his assessment of the housing crisis and the figures. In 2009, in the depths of the recession, which was caused in America and ultimately affected countries globally, Labour built—completed—124,980 homes, which is more than we have seen in any single year under the current Government. We need to have that on the record.
We face a housing crisis, with too few homes being built. In parts of the country, mortgage levels are racing ahead. Rents are rising, and the availability of homes for those in the highest housing need does not meet demand. Homelessness and rent arrears are rising because of Government polices such as the bedroom tax. The housing benefit bill is not falling, but rising. All the Government’s policy changes, which were clearly based on sums written on the back of a fag packet, are failing. Their decision to come into office and throw all the cards in the air—it did not matter whether the Labour Government’s policies were starting to work, even with the problems faced in the recession—was injudicious, unwise and ideologically driven.
The Government and the Minister seem to be burying their collective heads in the sand. It would be nice if the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), were on the Front Bench to listen to hon. Members’ contributions, and particularly those from Government Back Benchers. Some of their contributions have been thoughtful—the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) made a sensible and interesting contribution about the problems in London.
House builders have been given quite a lot of freedom by planning changes. I am disappointed, because when I was shadow Housing Minister, house builders frequently told me that, when conditions were right, they could step up to the plate, and build quickly and in numbers, but that is not happening. There are a range of complex reasons, some within the control of house builders, and some that are not, which the Government ought to address to expand the number of new homes being built.
The evidence appears to show that we are likely to have a fall in housing starts. The Home Builders Federation briefing to hon. Members says that that could be
“as a result of affordable housing starts reducing in the transitional period as the current affordable housing programme comes to an end and before the new commences”.
I would have expected the Government to have had a decent transition to ensure that that reduction does not happen, but the Minister was not clear. He threw in a number and said, “We are going to bring forward money from the 2015 to 2018 programme in order to deal with it and everything will be okay,” but he was completely unclear about how much and where. All such questions were left hanging in the air.
We have a problem about where value sits in a housing development. That is a big issue. The Government should be putting their hands up and saying, “We are not doing enough.” They should stop pretending that everything is rosy, when in fact it is shocking. We have the lowest level of house building in peacetime. Young people are finding it difficult to find a place to rent, let alone buy. In the south-west there is a shortfall of some 36,000—that is the difference in the past three years between housing completions and demand. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) said from the Opposition Front Bench, help to build is an interesting concept and would take us in the right direction.
The Government’s complacency and, at times, arrogance, needs to be challenged. The figures that were bandied about by the former Housing Minister, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) were fanciful. He made the allegations and assertions repeatedly in the House, and I have advised his office that I will talk about him today. He repeatedly made the claim that the Government would build more homes in five years than the Labour Government had built in 13 years, and fell foul of the UK Statistics Authority and the Information Commissioner. An article in The Independent on 7 June 2013 highlighted internal e-mails from officials that confirmed that the figures the former Housing Minister had used were not correct, and that Labour had built 500,000 affordable homes while in office, which was almost double the figure being pumped out at the time by the Tory machine. Is it any wonder that the voting public wonder what on earth to believe?
Government Members repeatedly quote figures on the number of social homes that are based on a subtraction of right-to-buy sales, which serves an interesting purpose from their point of view, but is incredibly misleading. That is from a Conservative party that wholeheartedly supported the sell-off of social housing. Both Labour and the Conservatives have failed to build using the proceeds of those sales. A number of Opposition Members have put their hands up to that. One of those parties—the Conservative party—did so wilfully, and one believed that the priority was getting the assets, or the housing stock, back up to a decent standard, because the previous Conservative Government had let it rot, which is not wise with valuable assets against which we might want to borrow for further investment. That was incredibly poor housing management from an ideologically blinkered Tory Government.
The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Keighley mentioned right-to-buy sales of about 10,000 and the delivery of 3,000 new homes, but that falls well short of the one-for-one provision promised by the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, or even like-for-like provision.
In Plymouth, despite the best efforts of the Labour council, there is still a shortage of homes to buy and to rent. The city council has been extremely imaginative in looking at self-build and eco options, as well as at making good use of brownfield sites. We also have one of the largest regeneration schemes in the country, begun under the previous Labour Government, which is transforming the area. However, Shelter has highlighted problems in our region. Some 80% of UK properties are too expensive for new buyers. That figure rises to 94% in the south-west, and to 99% in Exeter. The managing director of a large company linked to property sales in Plymouth, James Clarke from Lang and Co., has said that it is not selling to first-time buyers, but to second or even third-time buyers, as first-time buyers are not coming forward.
We have heard about the bank of mum and dad, but it simply is not available to most young people in low-income areas such as mine. We should also consider some of the other pressures. People are living longer in their homes; those homes are not being passed on through inheritance; and the money and equity in those homes are being used up for care purposes. That money is not therefore coming back into the housing market.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East very clearly set out Labour’s priorities and how we will deliver the house building that we need. Effectively, a number of ducks have to be got in a row before we can get such numbers, including land parcelling and construction skills. This Government are simply not getting their ducks in any sort of a line; frankly, they are shooting them one by one as each of their housing policies fails. We need a change of direction, and a change of Government.