Housing (London)
Debate between Clive Efford and Nick Boles(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Nick Boles
I unreservedly withdraw that slight to the hon. Lady’s political passion.
The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead asked a number of quite searching questions, but I must be honest: I do not have the time to answer them. Nor am I the Housing Minister, so I do not have the expertise. We shall write to her, however, to give her the full answers she deserves and copy in all hon. Members who have spoken today, but I fear that I will not be able to answer her questions fully right now.
The debate is a fascinating and challenging one. Of course no one in this House, on either side, denies that not just in London but most acutely in London this country faces a housing crisis. It is a subject to which I have given a great deal of attention and energy in the short time that I have been Planning Minister. It is important to understand that houses take a while to build. In our planning system, they take even longer to secure consent for. It is therefore not unfair to say that the seeds of most of what is happening now were laid several years ago.
The one thing that I missed in the excellent speeches of all the Opposition Members was any sense of responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in, or any sense of recognition that the seeds of the current crisis were sown not after May 2010 but decades ago, and they certainly have not been changed since.
