Housing and Planning Bill (Fourth sitting)

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Indeed, but I could be supportive if the hon. Gentleman wanted to introduce one on that basis.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I just had some figures brought over to me to answer the question about council housing and housing association builds over the last couple of Parliaments. I am sure that the hon. Lady will join me in welcoming the fact that taking council housing and housing association starts together, in the last Parliament, 2010 to 2015, there were 153,000 starts in those tenures, compared with 149,000 in the last four years of the last Labour Government. The current Administration have built more council and housing association units, when taken together. I am sure that the hon. Lady will join me in welcoming that.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The difficulty is that I have tried to separate out the number of homes built for social housing and at genuinely affordable rents, rather than including, as the tables do, figures on housing built at 80% of market rents, which I think a lot of us would accept are unaffordable for many.