Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Grant Shapps
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
The housing strategy outlines a range of initiatives designed to get the house building sector moving again and to provide opportunities for everyone. In particular, our NewBuy and Firstbuy initiatives are helping young people into home ownership and we are supporting that with institutional investment in the private rented sector.
Mr Sheerman
Is the Minister sure that that will help 18 to 25-year-olds? There is a crisis out there of young people with nowhere to live. The issue is not just about housing benefit; I believe that all benefit should be linked to education and employment. But the fact is that there is a crisis and there does not seem to be much imagination on the Minister’s part.
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out that the crisis is very real and we believe that it has been brewing over a long period. By the way, it is about a lot more than simply housing; if we look at the lives of people in chaos, we always find educational problems and family breakdown, and often financial crises are involved. A lot of work is going on across the Government, including the ministerial working group, which brings together eight different Departments. Our next report, which the hon. Gentleman can look forward to, will be published before the summer and will tackle that exact issue.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Barry Sheerman and Grant Shapps(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is one thing to release brownfield land; it is another to get it built on. That is why we introduced the innovative build now, pay later regime, which will get homes on those sites quickly, with developers paying for them only when the receipts start to come in. That will do a great deal for social mobility, as will the home swap direct scheme, which was launched last week, and which I noted the Opposition criticised.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will probably guess that I was against the abolition of regional development agencies. Some of us are worried about the arrangements that were made to enable staff to start social enterprises, with generous endowments from the RDA, who then go into competition with existing players in the third sector.
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman need not be too concerned. We believe that the best way of getting homes built—and the most built—is proper free competition between different providers, different developers and different organisations, which would range from co-ops to registered social landlords and commercial developers. We see no problem with that, and we have gained some sense that it is working. After all, more affordable homes for rent were built in the first year of this Government than at any time since John Major was in power.