Housing and Planning Bill (Fourth sitting)

Andrew Griffiths Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Yes, I can do that easily and am happy to refer the hon. Lady to the figures I gave a moment ago. The last Labour Government supported housing associations to build social homes for rent. That is why the figures for social rented homes—[Interruption]. If Conservative Members want to look at the figures, they are on the DCLG website and they break down how affordable homes are delivered, and under what tenure. They make it clear that in 2003-04 about 20,000 homes for social rent were being built. By the time the recession hit, that had increased to about 37,000 or 38,000 homes a year.

That was not enough, but it was more than when we came to office. Last year, in that same category the number was 10,000. Perhaps we did not build enough homes for social rent, but the situation was a lot better than now.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

Obviously the hon. Lady would not want to give the Committee the wrong impression. She has made reference to conversations or what the Mayor’s office may have said. Will she later today come back with some hard evidence—some quotes for the Committee of what the Mayor is supposed to have said—so that we can clearly understand what was said, and the context?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman does not have to look very hard, because the front page of Inside Housing of either this week or last week has comments from the deputy Mayor about how concerned he is. Perhaps that is contrary to some evidence that was given to the Committee, but there is some concern in the Mayor’s office about how starter homes might negatively affect what I think is the rent-to-buy scheme.