Housing White Paper

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I have talked about the importance of having more small builders. With finance, one particular way that we are helping is through the new home building fund, launched in September with £3 billion of funding, much of it available to the small and medium-sized house building sector. There are also a number of other measures beyond finance in the White Paper to help that sector, and I know that when my right hon. Friend sees them, she will welcome them.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State have any special plans to deal with the very difficult situation in inner-city areas, particularly along the river, such as in my constituency, where we have owners coming from way outside this country and leaving flats empty for a very long time? Are the Government not prepared to buy up some of that land themselves and allow local councils to build truly affordable housing?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady might be aware that some of the type of land she refers to will be public land—it might be owned by different Departments or even local government—and there is a lot in the White Paper on what is called the accelerated construction programme, whereby Government can work together with councils and the private sector to develop more quickly.

More generally, the hon. Lady talks about empty homes, but in fact the number of empty homes in England has fallen to its lowest level since records began—the figure is just over 200,000; there is still more to do—and that is partly because of some of the changes we made to the new homes bonus, which gives local councils incentives to bring those homes back into use.