New Housing Supply
Debate between Clive Betts and Nick Raynsford
Mr Betts
Yes, and as well as individuals, some potential larger housing providers, which are going to talk to the Committee as part of our private sector inquiry, are anxious to access institutional investment. They want to build properties and manage them in the long term, which is an interesting way forward for the private rented sector. A housing investment bank could provide a significant push in that area.
The Committee visited the Netherlands, which has a similar arrangement. Interestingly, their Government underwrite and guarantee funding that is raised and borrowed by their equivalent of housing associations, but it does not count as Government borrowing. The Government’s response to our proposal on some form of investment bank was that they would keep it under consideration. So, after a year, what has the Minister considered? I am sure that the answer will form an interesting part of his response.
Since then, the Future Homes Commission, which the Royal Institute of British Architects was instrumental in proposing, has had a similar idea: a £10 billion local housing development fund provided by 15 local authority pension funds. The Government told us in response that they would await the Montague report. Of course, Montague said that he did not believe that guarantees were appropriate because they distort the market. The Government have since introduced their £10 billion housing guarantee. They waited for Montague, heard what he said and promptly dismissed it. That is probably an unfair characterisation of the process.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the guarantee, but is not the most extraordinary thing that the guarantee was announced last summer as a key measure to get shovel-ready schemes going quickly, and here we are, nine months later, and not a single scheme has benefited from the guarantee? It is simply a fig leaf to cover the Government’s embarrassment.
Mr Betts
I am sure that the Minister will have a response on when the guarantee will get the shovels digging. The idea of a guarantee is not a bad one if it works, but perhaps it should be linked to some wider proposal for an investment bank. Something that came out in our recommendations is that, if there is a limited amount of public money, it can sometimes work for the best by assisting to leverage in private funding and by providing some guarantee for that private funding. We can then make the most of the two sources of funding together.
Housing Benefit
Debate between Clive Betts and Nick Raynsford(14 years ago)
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