Andrew Stephenson
Main Page: Andrew Stephenson (Conservative - Pendle)(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
My hon. Friend has made a valid point about working with housing associations. Does he agree that councils need to work closely with housing associations to identify sites for affordable housing? The Together Housing Group, which includes Housing Pendle, has recently rescued an abandoned development of 21 homes on Knotts lane in Colne. That development was left partially built a number of years ago, when the previous developer went into liquidation. Now, that housing association, by working with the council, has been able to rescue the development and provide much-needed affordable family homes for the local community.
Mr Prisk
My hon. Friend is a brilliant campaigner on this issue in Pendle. When I was the Minister for Housing, I had the chance to go and see the work that he does. He is absolutely right: we need the collaborative approach, across the sectors and between the different agencies, if we are to get the building of these homes unlocked.
I have spoken about the need for a long-term rental policy for housing associations. My second point is that we need to match that with a long-term commitment to sustained supply for all housing tenures. I recently had the chance to co-chair—with the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), who was himself a very capable construction Minister under the previous Administration—a housing commission sponsored by Lloyds Banking Group. That commission brought together an outstanding group of public and private sector experts, who were crystal clear about the key issue. The report states:
“We believe that only a long-term commitment, across the political parties, will deliver the additional homes needed over the next decade. A realistic target is to complete 2 million to 2.5 million homes by 2025. To achieve this there is no single solution, no silver bullet. Rather what is needed is a larger, more competitive and diverse market in the supply of homes.”
As the report rightly says, we must not only expand the house building and private rented sector, but encourage housing associations and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) pointed out, local authorities to contribute more. We need not only the larger contractors, which the hon. Member for Nottingham South mentioned, but more small builders and, indeed, self-building. In addition to more homes for sale, a new professional private rented sector needs to develop. We will need not only to regenerate urban areas but to establish completely new settlements as part of a long-term comprehensive approach.
On that note, I very much welcome the Minister’s statement to the House yesterday on Ebbsfleet. He is making excellent progress on that; I remember the tensions and challenges of dealing with it. That, together with the potential in Bicester and elsewhere, is really good progress. Together—not individually but together—all these different elements can give us a sustained increase in housing supply, an increase not for one year or two years, but over a decade or more.
That brings me to my third and last point, which was a key finding in the housing commission’s report. We need to turn idle public land into affordable family homes. Government, in all its forms, owns a lot of buildings and land that are either underused or, frankly, completely idle.
Brandon Lewis
As I have outlined, the ambition is to ensure that we are building the houses that this country needs. Those 200,000 starter homes will give people opportunities that the Labour party simply cannot match. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford—my predecessor—outlined, we are at the start of a programme that is building affordable housing at the fastest rate the country has seen in more than 20 years.
The hon. Member for York Central made a good point. People often expect the challenge for the development industry over the past couple of years to have been land supply, but it is not, thanks to the changes that we made to the top-down rigours and structures in planning that stopped development under Labour. Through that, our driving of planning locally and because we have kept interest rates low, we are seeing benefits. Some 240,000 homes have been given planning permission in the past 12 months. Members touched on the changes the Government have made to finance for small building projects, which have made that finance available. We went further a couple of months ago. One area that developers consistently mention is the supply chain. I was delighted yesterday to reopen a brick factory that shut down in 2008 during Labour’s recession. It reopened on Monday and will deliver 2 million bricks a year to the industry.
The construction industry is working and hiring at the fastest rate since 1997, and the hon. Gentleman is right that that delivers the second challenge to the industry, which is skills. One thing we can all do—I hope that all parties agree on this—is encourage more people to come into the sector. It is a phenomenally rewarding career, with wide opportunities at home and, potentially, abroad. There are a wide range of careers in the industry. We need to change some of the perceptions of the construction industry to encourage more people into it. That is why I hosted a skills summit with the Minister for Skills and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) just before Christmas at the fantastic new Olympic park. Developers, apprentices and colleges discussed those issues to try to ensure that we are delivering the skills we need for the future. Construction is no doubt one of the opportunities we have to see more jobs coming to this country, beyond those we have already seen.
Andrew Stephenson
Does the Minister agree that for parts of the north of England, such as the area I represent, it is important that we focus not only on new build homes, but also on bringing long-term empty properties back into use? I thank him for the support he has provided to Pendle borough council. We have done fantastic work to reduce the number of empty homes in the borough from more than 2,000 to just 1,200.
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I know from when I visited his constituency that he makes that point passionately and has worked hard with the excellent leadership of Pendle borough council to develop that work. Earlier, Members talked about the work that is often unsung. The work to bring empty homes back into use under this Government has been phenomenal. Empty homes are at the lowest level pretty much since records began. That is a big step forward in replacing and moving forward from that loss of 420,000 socially rented homes under Labour, as Members have touched on.