David Crausby
Main Page: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
I share my hon. Friend’s desire to make sure that homes are more energy-efficient and that energy bills fall. We have already raised building standards by 25%, and we are consulting on the next step; I hope that he will contribute to the consultation. If we implement the proposals in the consultation, we will need people to use renewable energy sources in building schemes, and that will go a long way towards what he is seeking to achieve.
Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)
We all want house building to get moving again and first-time buyers to get on to the housing ladder, but is it not true that 95%, and even higher, mortgages were what went wrong with the housing market in the first place? Will not any attempt artificially to prop up house building with Government subsidy come back and bite us at some point?
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
As I said earlier, the problem with the housing market was sub-prime lending, or lending to people who could not afford to pay back the mortgages, not 95% mortgages, which operated perfectly well in this country for many decades. The criteria for lending are now much stricter, and nobody will get a mortgage who is not properly able to pay it, not only with today’s low interest rates but with interest rates that are clearly likely to rise at some point in future.