Housing

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Jack Dromey

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

As I will make clear later, I am prepared to defend our record at any time, but let me just give a few indications of our record: 2 million new homes, 1 million more mortgage holders, and over half a million new affordable homes. Also, we brought up to standard more than 1.5 million homes that were in need of decent homes investment, putting right the backlog left by the previous Government, and in 2007-08, the year before the bankers’ crash, we achieved the highest start point for new-builds in Britain at any time in the last 30 years, with more than 200,000 homes being built. When the crash came, our response was very different from what happened back in the dark days of the 1980s. Did we stand back and wring our hands? No we did not. We acted to keep people in their homes. Through Kickstart and other programmes, we took action, resulting in 110,000 homes built, 160,000 jobs safeguarded and 3,000 apprenticeships. So I will defend our record at any time.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jack Dromey]

I want to make a little more progress.

The sad reality of the gulf between supply and demand means that this week and every week, 2,500 fewer homes are built than are needed. The Minister will be aware that although his predecessor said two years ago:

“Building more homes is the gold standard upon which we shall be judged”,

housing starts under his tenure were lower in every quarter since Labour left power. The Minister will also know from his considerable experience in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that the collapse in the house building industry has had a catastrophic impact on the construction industry. The Office for National Statistics has confirmed that the total volume of construction output in the second quarter of this year fell by 9.5% from the total in the same quarter of last year. The ONS confirms that that was driven by a fall in work on new private housing of 6.7% and a catastrophic 25% fall in the public housing sector.

Two years ago, we warned the Government that by recklessly raising taxes and cutting spending too far and too fast, they risked putting the economic recovery at risk. We warned them that if they cut the housing budget by 60%, it would be a devastating blow not only to house building and the construction industry but to the wider economy and the millions of families desperately in need of a home at a price they can afford. The Government, having failed to listen to those warnings, cannot now escape their failure or duck their responsibilities for its victims.

Perhaps most devastating is the rise in homelessness and rough sleeping, the very issues that the previous Housing Minister said brought him into politics in the first place. Statutory homelessness has risen for five consecutive quarters, up 14% in the past year alone. I do not know what brought the new Housing Minister into politics, but, with the new homelessness figures out tomorrow, will he tell us whether he expects to see a fall or an increase for the sixth quarter in a row?

Most heartbreaking of all—we see it all over the country—there was a 23% rise in rough sleeping last year. It is a visible, visceral epidemic that harks back to the 1980s, when Tory policies led to cardboard cities under bridges and annual reports of deaths in cold English winters.

It is not just those without a roof over their head who are suffering. The Minister’s predecessor and the Prime Minister have claimed on the Floor of the House that private sector rents are falling, so perhaps the Minister can explain why the very company used by both the Prime Minister and yesterday’s Housing Minister to justify their claims, LSL Property Services, reported only two weeks ago that rents hit a record high over the summer? As a consequence, we have the rise of “generation rent” with 1 million young people predicted to be locked out of home ownership by 2020 as they face a squeeze on their wages, increasingly unaffordable rents and difficulties saving for a deposit, as evidenced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We meet regularly some of the major developers and building companies, and they all say the same thing. They have planning permission for in excess of 300,000 sites, and the figure is rising, but they simply do not feel that they can proceed, not least because of the state of the economy and the mortgage market. Again and again we have had those false dawns from this failed Government, and now once again Ministers will don their wellies and high-vis jackets. More schemes to get Britain building are promised, as if saying it will make it so.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way eventually. May I draw his attention to the lamentable record on council homes in North West Leicestershire? The previous Labour-controlled district council left an awful legacy when it was finally turfed out of office in 2007: 70% of council homes were below the decent homes standard, one of the very worst records in the country. May I also draw his attention to the fact that it was this Government who found almost £21 million to bring all the council houses in my constituency up to the decent homes standard in the next three years, another example of this Government sorting out Labour’s housing mess?

[Jack Dromey]

Sadly, when we took office in 1997 we were confronted with a Conservative legacy of disrepair and neglect. We invested £19 billion to bring more than 1.5 million homes up to the decent homes standard, and I have seen in my constituency how that transformed the lives of the people in those homes. Some 75% of all tenants concerned had their homes brought up to the decent homes standard. Did the hon. Gentleman’s Government stick to that progress when they took office? No, they did not.