Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kris Hopkins]

I want to promote investment in the housing market and to give developers confidence. The reality is that we have delivered 15,000 new homes through our Help to Buy scheme, and 1,000 of those were in London alone.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What steps he is taking to encourage local communities to fund social enterprises through crowdfunding and other new forms of finance.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)]

I follow my ministerial colleague in thanking my immediate predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), for the smooth handover into this post; it is always a good idea to be nice to the Chief Whip.

My Department established the community shares unit in October 2012, with £590,000 of funding over three years. Since then, communities have raised £16 million from 70 share offer launches. That is a significant increase on the £3 million raised the year before.

[Mr Sheerman]

I welcome the Minister, who was a very good member of the Education Committee under my chairmanship, to his new job. Is he aware that crowdfunding is how we could get a real renaissance of communities up and down the country? It is in peril at the moment because in the private and social enterprise sectors it is threatened by inappropriate regulation from the Financial Conduct Authority.