Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Anne McGuire and Bob Russell

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

The hon. Lady has a philosophical misunderstanding about people’s homes and houses. My mother lived in a local authority house all her life. She never thought it was anything other than her home. She did not see it as second class or inferior. She lived in it and it was right for her.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that successive Labour and Conservative Governments—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bob Russell]

Successive Labour and Conservative Governments from 1945 to 1980 built a massive supply of family council houses, but for the next 30 years, they did not. It is a question of supply and demand. Does the right hon. Lady agree that we need more affordable rented houses?

[Mrs McGuire]

I would not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Housing was built in the 1940s and ’50s to deal with the nuclear family that everybody knew at the time. The way in which families have developed, including the growth in the number of single-parent households, was not factored in. That goes for the social rented and private sectors.