Nutrient Neutrality: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I would be happy to sit down with the hon. Gentleman and explain to him what is meant by slurry management grants. We are helping farmers to build a circular economy. He will know that this is a valuable resource. Farmers will welcome this intervention because they know that it could help them to farm more sustainably. Most farmers I talk to want to work in harmony with nature. That is what we are doing. I do not know what the Liberal Democrats’ policy is, though.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

This Tory Government are failing on housing and the environment pays the price. It is not an either/or. Our Welsh Labour Government are delivering on both in Wales. They have been working strategically with all stakeholders, with high-level nutrient management boards set up to tackle precisely this issue, sometimes chaired by the First Minister himself—they are always chaired by Ministers—as well as bringing through regulations to improve agricultural water quality and getting homes built as well. If the Welsh Labour Government can do both, why can’t this Government?

[Rachel Maclean]

The Welsh Labour Government have a shocking record on house building, as they have on many issues. What is more, they are not tackling the issue at source, which is why we are bringing forward our catchment plans and our protected site strategies. A lot of the rivers that are draining from Wales are impacting negatively on constituencies in England. The only thing I agree with in the hon. Lady’s rather stilted comments is that this is not an either/or. If she had listened to what I was saying, she would know that we are doing both. We are protecting the environment, protecting our rivers and bringing forward housing.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its most damning report yet. This Government go around the world telling other Governments not to open coalmines, yet that is exactly what this Government are doing. They are also issuing new oil and gas licences, yet not investing in the most efficient and cheapest renewable energy of all, which is onshore wind. Will the Secretary of State at least admit that this Government are not doing anything to commit to ensuring that our next generation has a future linked to the economy, and a more sustainable future at that?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who is a brilliant advocate for the environment. Some of the arguments she has made in this place have weighed with me, and she has helpfully corrected me in the past when I have been in the wrong, but on this occasion I have respectfully to disagree with her. I cannot see how we can have an effective and just transition to a net zero future—not a total zero future, but a net zero future—without oil and gas playing a diminishing but significant and strategic part.

If there are people in this House—and there are on the Front Benches of almost every other party—who believe that we should get rid of oil and gas like that tomorrow or overnight, let them say so. If there are people who think that there should be no further exploration or drilling of our own domestic oil and gas resources, let them go to Aberdeen, Middlesbrough or Grimsby and say so, but I do not think they will receive a warm welcome from the voters there or from the investors. On the point about the coalmine, again I am restricted in what I can say because I have merely followed the advice of the planning inspector. The planning inspector was very clear that both the net zero and downstream emissions as a result of this change would actually contribute to a stronger environmental posture for the UK, not a weaker one.

I want to turn to the area of renewable energy, which the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) mentioned. She, like me, is a fan and an advocate of renewables. Let me take her on a journey—a journey to Teesside. I would invite her to join me in visiting Teesport, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young). I would like her, and indeed everyone in the House, to join me in seeing what Ben Houchen and the Tees Valley Combined Authority have done there; to see the way in which turbines are assembled there; and to see the way in which the investment secured through the freeport there is providing high-quality, high-paying jobs in green technology, at the cutting-edge of the future, alongside hydrogen work.

I am sure the hon. Lady would want to applaud what Ben Houchen has done, because she is an enlightened and thoughtful Member of this House, but I have to tell her that not every member of the Labour party has been supporting Ben Houchen in bringing high-quality green jobs to working class areas in Teesside. Recently, when the Mayor of Teesside was creating a new development corporation to bring new jobs and new investment into renewables, Middlesbrough Labour councillors voted against it. When the freeport was being debated recently, Labour activists sought to undermine the efforts of Ben Houchen in bringing jobs into that area. The economic policies of those on the Opposition Front Bench that would undermine what is being done.

Teesside has been transformed thanks to Conservative leadership, and in the Budget most recently, Eston—which for 20 years Labour had promised it would invest in, but where it never spent a penny—secured £20 million to see that community at last given the money it needs, so that people’s pride in that place can be supported by central Government. For decades, Teesside was neglected and overlooked by Labour, and it is still being undermined and attacked by Labour, but it depends on Conservatives for its future. That is levelling up in action.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

This is a Budget for decline and could not be further from growth. Every day, I hear from constituents in Cardiff North who are hungry, cold, in debt and fearful for the future. There is nothing in this Budget that will reassure them even a little. They have no shield from the cost of living crisis, no measures to kick-start the economy and no green agenda to build a better future. This Government continue to deny the enormity of the climate challenge. There was nothing on investing in cheap onshore solar and wind power and there was a failure to invest in green tech. The windfall tax loopholes for oil and gas companies were left wide open.

Just yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its most damning report yet, a final warning on the climate crisis. The IPCC warned that only swift and drastic action can avert what is predicted, and I think we can all agree that this Budget is neither swift nor drastic. Without making that link between the climate and the economy, we will never be able to face the challenges ahead. Our children will remember the failing political choices of this Government.

Despite the Chancellor’s misleading claims about growth, the UK will be the weakest economy in the G7 this year and the only country that will see negative growth. It has the weakest recovery from the pandemic; the economy is smaller now than it was pre-covid. The Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted the largest fall in living standards since records began, a bleak legacy for the Tory Government. Is it surprising that one of the new policies benefits only the richest 1% and their pension pots, costing the taxpayer £1.3 billion? That is the wrong priority at the wrong time.

On fuel poverty, Friends of the Earth has just released data showing that at least 5 million households, or one in every five, are now in fuel poverty in England and Wales. My constituents are paying double in energy bills what they were paying a year ago. My constituent Lauren and her partner are both disabled and were told by Shell Energy, without warning, that they are in debt by £5,000. They are both trying to remain positive, but this has really pushed them over the edge. How many more testimonies like that must we hear before the Government develop a conscience and introduce meaningful change?

Instead, we are faced with a Government who are repairing the colossal cracks in our society with paper mâché. Meanwhile, Samaritans figures show that this January saw the highest percentage of first-time callers concerned about finances or unemployment. There is a direct correlation between increased poverty and domestic abuse, and support services are reporting increased demands on their helplines from desperate victims. Now would be a great time for the Government to introduce the long-awaited victims Bill, but, as always, we continue to wait.

This Budget fails on every level. I have constituents who have told me that they would rather die than pay the energy bills that they cannot afford, food banks in Cardiff are reporting that their users are eating dog food to survive, and the Chancellor has increased the Welsh Government’s budget by only £180 million over the next two years. This Budget is not fit for purpose. To echo the words of our Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford, this is a

“less than bare minimum Budget.”

Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

This Queen’s Speech was an opportunity to meet the profound challenges we face after the pain and turmoil of the last year, to address the deep-seated inequalities embedded in our communities throughout a decade of Conservative rule, and to create a plan to rebuild our country, secure the economy and create jobs for today and tomorrow across all parts of our country.

But this Government’s plan was a lost opportunity—a lost opportunity to take steps to invest in and create the secure, green, well-paid jobs of the future and the here and now; a lost opportunity to deliver for families and boost communities such as those in my constituency, from Pontprennau to Tongwynlais; and a lost opportunity to put a plan in place to enable young people across the country to thrive and build the skills they need. That is what my constituents in Cardiff North wanted to see. There was nothing on welfare security beyond this autumn, when business support and the uplift in universal credit will come to an end, and nothing for the excluded 3 million, who have been continuously let down by this Government.

The Government’s plan offers nothing to end scandalous fire and rehire tactics. The Prime Minister told me in November that these were, in his own words, “unacceptable” and that his Government would seek “redress”. That sums up this Prime Minister and his Government’s proposals for the country—always hoping, never delivering, and never addressing the many systemic issues raised in this House, from jobs to health, levelling up and climate action. Always heavy on the spin but light on action.

Rhetoric does not put food on the table for my constituents. It does not create secure jobs that allow people to raise a family without having to take on a second or third job. This Tory Government’s plan neither relieves nor frees people from indignity or inequality. It does not speak, either, to people’s hopes and aspirations to thrive and succeed on their own terms, or to the country and the conditions they want for themselves, their children and the future of their communities. What a wasted opportunity.

Instead, I look closer to home, back in Wales, at the fantastic job that the Welsh Labour Government are doing, with 150,000 jobs protected over the past year, 100,000 proper apprenticeships created, rail back in public ownership, and the public investment of Dŵr Cymru in customers, not profit. I look at a Welsh Labour Government who are delivering free school meals during the holidays, no questions asked; the abolition of prescription charges; the most generous childcare offer across the UK, and the promise of more. What we needed in this plan was real, transformative change that challenged the baked-in inequalities and provided a real way forward.

Commission on Justice in Wales

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

Over the 20 years since the first Welsh devolution settlement, we have witnessed the successful devolution of powers from Whitehall to Wales. The people of Wales have greatly benefited from power, money and decision making being centred much closer to their lives. I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that people may not mention it on the doorsteps when we knock on doors, but that is a good thing. That is when we know it is working; they mention it when it is not working. Decisions are made by people much closer to home, who have a greater appreciation and understanding of the daily struggles. When the Welsh people enjoy so much control over areas from transport to housing, education and health, it seems to me absolutely ludicrous that justice, the cornerstone of freedom and democracy, should be controlled from London.

I pay tribute to Lord Thomas and all the members of the justice commission, who looked hard and deeply into this issue and came up with a strong report—a landmark report. Let me highlight the most important part of it: the Welsh people are being let down by a broken justice system. Surely a nation that makes and executes its own laws should be policing them.

It is insufficient that the people of Wales do not have the benefit enjoyed by the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland and England of justice being an integral part of policy making. Policy and spending on justice must be aligned with those areas that are already devolved, such as health and education, but how do we get to the outcome we so need and want in Wales—the rehabilitation of prisoners in the prison system—when the Welsh Government have no control over how that happens in the justice system?

When the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies)—now the Under-Secretary of State for Wales—chaired the Welsh Affairs Committee, we had an inquiry, in which I took part, on prisons in Wales. When we visited prisons in Wales, we saw a broken system in action. Prison officers told us how they could not put in the mental health provision that prisoners so desperately needed because justice was a Westminster matter. We saw that at first hand. I know the Minister saw it at first hand.

To devolve justice to Wales is not radical; it is merely levelling up our devolution settlement to ensure that it matches those of Scotland and Northern Ireland. The commission found that people in Wales feel let down by the system. There are feelings of frustration and alienation from the system, driven in part by confusion about who controls it. We saw that at first hand.

Wales needs a clearer, more pertinent form of devolution to tackle its problems in justice, policing and prisons. I know that in policing, Cardiff is not currently recognised as a capital city and so does not receive the capital city funding for policing that it should, despite holding many large-scale national events every single weekend and facing the terror threats that many other cities, from London to Manchester to Birmingham, also face. If justice were devolved, the people of Wales would be able to properly allocate those resources where necessary and appropriate.

[Craig Williams]

I have followed the speeches by the hon. Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Islwyn (Chris Evans), and I agree. In fact, the hon. Member for Islwyn spoke with such passion that I was overwhelmed, after those thoughtful contributions, by the belief that this power should remain here. On the point about devolution and the process 20 years on, may I just reflect that I am not sure that the people of Wales have any faith that devolving more is always a solution? As someone who is passionate about devolution, I think there is a growing appetite for the Welsh Government to get on and deliver, rather than saying, “More powers.” It is wonderful to watch the Labour party present such a united message on this particular point.

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but what he is missing here is real life—real life in prisons, with prisoners being let down by that broken justice system. What is being called for here and within the judiciary and legal system is the devolution of those powers to Wales. That is what is being called for and that is what I am hearing. There is no reason why Wales should not enjoy the powers that have been enjoyed by Scotland and Northern Ireland, especially in solving the challenges that Welsh justice will face, requiring tighter, more localised and more regional powers.

The commission report also challenges Wales’s brilliant law schools to work more effectively together, to recognise the place of Welsh law in legal education and to ensure that teaching materials are available in both languages. We have some fantastic law schools; I must declare an interest there, as my daughter has just started at the brilliant Swansea University School of Law.

In conclusion, I welcome the announcement from the First Minister for Wales that he will establish and chair a new justice committee of the Cabinet to look at the commission’s recommendations. It is beyond time that our devolution settlement was levelled up. Wales should have the freedom and control to shape and mould the justice system so that it works for us, the people of Wales.

At the moment, a fair, effective and accessible justice system is simply not possible in Wales. We should not allow anything less than a strong, good, devolved justice system. The devolution of judiciary powers should be seen not as an exception, but as something that should have been carried out many years ago.

Private Tower Blocks: Removal of Cladding

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on securing this really important debate. I remember the morning when I first saw the horrific scene of Grenfell on my television screen; I had been elected only a few days earlier. Those images—the horror of it—were very poignant to me and all of us here, I am sure.

The Government response has just not been good enough—not only the actions there and then, but what has since transpired. I was really horrified by what I saw then and what I have learned since. I do not want that lack of action and slow response to be replicated if such a thing happened again. If this had happened in the Minister’s backyard, or perhaps in a safe seat in south-east England, there might have been a very immediate response. I hope that the Minister will think about what will happen from now on to ensure that people living in high-rise buildings are safeguarded and looked after.

That is not what is happening in my constituency of Cardiff North, where I have a few high-rise buildings. The cladding on one of those buildings, Lydstep Flats, was tested shortly after Grenfell and was found to be in breach of fire and safety regulations. Of course, the cladding was immediately taken down, so that the residents could sleep comfortably in their beds at night. Since then, however, the mix of private and Cardiff Council ownership has meant that there has not been adequate funding to replace the cladding, and the residents are now suffering day in, day out. That has nothing to do with the aesthetics of how the building looks; it is about what it is like to live there. I have visited those flats. There is damp and mould. Many of the flats are horrific. People are living in squalid conditions, and are suffering from mental and physical problems as a result.

One constituent came to me—I have since helped her to move flat—suffering from respiratory and mental health problems. She is really very concerned. Two fantastic local Labour councillors, Dilwar Ali and Jennifer Burke-Davies, have done their utmost to fight for the council to replace the cladding. The council is working very hard to find the funds, and a surveyor is looking at what the cladding needs to be, but there is no central funding from UK Government. We know how cash-strapped councils are. I believe it is for the UK Government to ensure that councils have adequate funding to replace cladding, so that my constituents in Lydstep Flats can sleep soundly at night, do not fear for their safety, and can be healthy, rather than fearful about their health.

Housing

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I am sorry to see Members leaving the Chamber, because we are about to discuss the Government’s top domestic priority, which is of far more concern to many people up and down the country than our endless talk of Brexit. I have entitled this debate “Housing” because I did not want to be confined to any specific part of the housing debate and wanted to give the Minister the opportunity to address any question within the housing space.

It is absolutely clear that we have a very big housing problem, and have had a very big problem, for some years. I have been attending seminars, roundtables and conferences on housing for at least seven years. I first went to the QEII Centre to hear Adri Duivesteijn, the godfather of the self-build and custom house building movement in the Netherlands—a former Dutch Member of Parliament who then became the mayor of Almere, a community in the Netherlands that I think I am right in saying the Minister has visited. Since then, I have been to many events of various kinds, and everyone has their own diagnosis of the problems and their own solutions, but generally they all mention land, planning or finance. They often mention the role of the volume house builders, the way in which local council planning authorities are stretched and the difficulty in getting access to land.

Many of these points have a great deal of truth about them, but the issue can be encapsulated much more simply in the following sentence: the supply of housing does not rise to meet the demand for housing. In many other areas of life, it is true that supply generally does rise to meet demand. In what I would call orthodox, rather than classical, economics, if someone is making what economists call supernormal profits—profits that are in excess of what one might expect—two factors generally combine to bring those profits down to normal levels. One factor is that other actors in the marketplace will see the opportunity of those high profits and will move in. In other words, new suppliers will move in, with competition, increasing choice for consumers and driving down the profit margins. But that is not the situation that we have in the United Kingdom. In fact, over the last 30 years, the situation has steadily become the reverse of that. We effectively have permanent supernormal profits.

Some 30 years ago, in 1988, 66% of houses in this country—a large fraction of the total—were built by SME builders, which were represented by excellent organisations such as the Federation of Master Builders. The situation now is that less than 20%—perhaps 15% or 17%—of houses are built by SME builders, with all kinds of extra problems that make it more difficult for them to engage. Now a very small number of very large companies build most of the houses; for the most part, they are the members of the Home Builders Federation.

The strange thing is that if one asks consumers what they think and what they want, as has been done several times by independent, authoritative opinion pollster organisations that have been commissioned for the purpose, they will come up with the following result. Somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of people do not want to buy the products of volume house builders. The figure of 75% comes from a YouGov survey conducted by the National Custom and Self Build Association, which is a trade body for, as the name suggests, self-building and custom house building, whereby houses are manufactured offsite—perhaps a better way of putting it is “high-tech offsite construction”—and then delivered to a site where they are constructed. The figure of 67%—the two thirds of people who do not want to, or would prefer not to, buy the product of the volume house builders—comes from the volume house builders themselves. Their own research tells us that most people do not want to buy their product. Now, in a vaguely competitive ecosystem where there was choice for consumers, that would be corrected by new suppliers coming in and providing something that consumers did want.

Let me be very clear that the numbers themselves suggest that between a third and a quarter of consumers do want to buy the product of volume house builders. If they wish to do so, they should be free to do so, as long as those products are built to the right standards in terms of health and safety and building regulations. I have no issue with that at all. It is true that, over the last 30 to 40 years, houses have got smaller and more expensive than they were in the not-that-distant past. However, if people wish to buy the product of a volume house builder, they should certainly be free to do so, as long as those volume house builders operate within the law; I do not object to that at all. But fundamentally, the two things required for this ecosystem to function are low barriers to entry and consumer choice, and those are the two things that are fundamentally absent.

We all know what the consequence is. I have tested this with nine-year-olds in primary schools in my constituency. I say, “What happens to the price of something if there is not enough of it?”, and every had goes up and they say, “It goes up.” Then, just to make the point really clearly, I say, “And what happens to the price of something if there is too much of it?”, and every hand goes up and they say, “It goes down.” It is not difficult to understand—it is intuitive to the point where a nine-year-old can grasp it. That is what has happened to the housing market, if one can call it a market, in the UK. I suppose that an economist might say that of course it is a market, but a very oligopolistic one—in other words, something approaching, but not quite, a monopoly.

That means that the suppliers making supernormal profits can keep on doing this for a very long time without let or hindrance. At the same time, the average price of an average dwelling has gone from three and half to four times income a generation ago to about eight times income now. That depends on where one is in the country, of course. For South Norfolk, the last figures I saw from the National Housing Federation—admittedly slightly out of date now, but they will not have changed that much—were about 8.2 times average income. The same numbers suggested 8.2 times average income in Harlow in Essex, 13 times average income in Hertfordshire, and 17 times average income in Oxford—and in some of the really hot boroughs in London, it was completely off the charts. Even in the poorer parts of the country where incomes are lower and properties are less desirable, it is now five and half to six times average income in many cases.

I pumped my parliamentary salary into one of the websites just to see what a lender would lend, and I was quite horrified that the first number that came out was five and half times income. That would not have been possible a generation ago. We have had more money chasing roughly the same amount of houses, and, not surprisingly, the price has gone up. That has a number of consequences.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that house builders need to be looking at the cost of living in a property over the time that residents would own that property and meeting carbon reduction or zero-carbon targets, so that when the house is sold the cost of living in that house has changed?

[Mr Bacon]

Yes, I do, although if one went on a sales course, one would be told “Benefits, not features.” One does not explain that a vacuum cleaner does 3,000 revolutions per minute rather than 1,500, as nobody cares—one explains that it cleans one’s house better. In the same light, I would not bang on about carbon, making people feel kind of morally inferior—I would explain that one could have the choice of having a house that would cost nothing to heat, and ask why anyone would want one that cost a lot to heat.

I had this out very specifically at the Policy Exchange think-tank with the land use and planning director of Barratt. I asked about what it did for its customers in this regard. I said, “Is it really true that you have a conversation with your customers in which you say, ‘Now madam, we’ve got a variety of houses available for you, this one over here that will cost you roughly £1,400 a year for heat and hot water, and this one over here that is insulated to, or nearly at, passive house standards that will cost you almost nothing to heat—perhaps, with mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, £80 or £150 a year. Which one would madam prefer?’ Do you really offer them that choice?” Of course, he turned his back on me and stomped off rather than answer the question.

[Anna McMorrin]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree, though, that we need to change our building regulations in England, and also in Wales, where this is devolved, to make sure that housing is built to low-carbon or zero-carbon standards to ensure that this happens across the board? We have house builders that are really taking advantage by putting up houses that come at a ridiculous cost to our climate.

[Mr Bacon]

Yes. I do not want to be building houses that we will be knocking down in 30 or 40 years’ time because they are so dreadful. That is utterly pointless. The hon. Lady mentioned building regulations. At the Local Authority Building Control conference, where I gave an address, I needed only to say the word “Persimmon” and people fell around laughing as if I was as funny as Tommy Cooper—perhaps there are people who think I am—because it is a byword for poor practice in the building industry.

I have heard the chief executives of volume house builders criticise Persimmon for its bad practice. We all know what happened to the sainted Jeff Fairburn. Because of his compensation scheme, he was being paid—I will say this slowly—£130 million in emoluments by the shareholders of Persimmon. So egregious a scandal was it that he got so sick of being followed round by someone from the BBC with a microphone asking him to justify it that he eventually resigned, which was a red letter day for many of us who are campaigning for higher quality. In a competitive environment where the company could not afford to pay one chief executive that much money, that money should have been going into larger spaces, better quality material and better thermal performance. There is a huge distortion.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

That was a remarkable example of a combination of encyclopaedic knowledge and conviction about what my hon. Friend rightly says should be not only the Government’s top domestic priority but the entire country’s primary moral mission: to build the homes that the next generation need and which are currently denied to them.

It is unusual for me to hear strains of my own speeches read back to me. I know that my hon. Friend has not been to listen to many of my speeches, but what he said resonates strongly with me: many of the themes he laid out in his preamble and diagnosis I am myself going around the country promoting—not least the dysfunctionality of the house building market. The one element that he omitted, but that I am sure he is aware of, is that the situation is not helped by the fact that in the crash of 2007-08, 50% of all small house builders were wiped out—removed from the market—having produced, as my hon. Friend said, more than half of all new homes. That proportion has now dropped to about a third, I think.

Both in coalition and since, the Government have done their best to try to push output up from a low of 124,000 in 2012 to 222,000 last year. The forward indicators for next year are looking pretty good as well.

[Anna McMorrin]

Why did the Government scrap the requirement for homes to be carbon neutral, when that would go a long way towards helping with living costs and budgets, as well as meeting climate targets?

[Kit Malthouse]

I totally acknowledge the role that high environmental standards have to play in a sense of social justice about housing. I went to a factory run by Accord Housing, which produces 1,000 modular homes a year. So good are the environmental standards in those homes that they have lower arrears because people can afford to heat them. That is definitely something on which I want to focus.

I want to address some of the questions that my hon. Friend raised. He is right that we need to do something about the way in which the house building market functions at the moment, and my job is to wander around being disruptive, supporting new entrants and players to create the competitive landscape that he is looking for—competing on quality and type; being disruptive on technology and encouraging modern methods of construction, including off-site manufacture and new techniques, so that new entrants find it easier to overcome the barriers to entry that he mentioned; and being disruptive on finance.

My hon. Friend is a little negative about Help to Buy, but I ask him to take care. Many tens of thousands of young people have accessed homes for the first time when the market was denied to them before, because of a Government-backed effective bank of mum and dad. While there will be assessments of that scheme, there is no indication at the moment that it has pushed up prices.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the death rate among homeless people.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

16. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the death rate among homeless people.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

Every death of someone who is homeless is one too many. That is why we are determined to end rough sleeping altogether. We have committed £100 million to the rough sleeping strategy, and we are spending over £1.2 billion to prevent and reduce homelessness.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the issues of mental health and addiction, with a much higher proportion of people who are rough sleeping having those particular needs. That is why in the NHS long-term plan there was the commitment for an extra £30 million designed specifically for health support for rough sleepers, because sometimes access can be really difficult. We are determined to ensure that that type of support is able to be provided to rough sleepers.

[Anna McMorrin]

We know that homelessness is getting worse. According to Shelter, 36 new people become homeless every day. One way to address this is to make more social housing available. To do that, England should be suspending the right to buy as we have already done in Wales. Does the Secretary of State agree?

[James Brokenshire]

I do agree that we require more social housing. That is why we have our affordable housing programme. We have also already taken off the restrictions on councils in England to enable them to borrow to build a new generation of council homes. [Interruption.] I would just point out to Opposition Members, with regard to some of their comments, that this Government have built more council houses in their time than in 13 years of the last Labour Government. But we know there is more to do and we are committed to doing it.