Oral Answers to Questions

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stunell]

Every effort needs to be made by local councils. They have some statutory tools at their disposal—statutory improvement notices, enforced sales and the empty dwelling management orders. However, I hope that the fact that we are tripling the investment for bringing empty homes across the country back into use will give my hon. Friend some assurance that we are serious about the issue and will work with local authorities to deliver a much improved record.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I am glad that you have mentioned that there are 738,000 empty properties, many of them long-term empty. Can you give some quantitative indication of—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I can give no quantitative indication at all, but the Minister might be able to. Carry on.

[Graham Jones]

Sorry, Mr Speaker. Can the Minister give a quantitative indication of the extent to which he hopes to reduce the figure over the period—100,000 or 200,000? By how much will he reduce it?

[Andrew Stunell]

Some £100 million is intended to assist in bringing back 3,000 empty homes into use, and that is direct financial support. I draw the House’s attention again to the impact that the new homes bonus can make in increasing that, and there are of course the statutory levers that local authorities should use to make sure that the blight of empty homes is reduced.