Business of the House

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am interested to hear what my hon. Friend’s local authority has done. I believe that our planning proposals will give more weight to local authorities to take the sort of initiative that he has just touched on to protect independent stores and local traders. As for protecting them from unfair, predatory trading from some of the giant chains, the draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill may give some protection. Of course, the Government have in the pipeline the broader agenda of deregulation, which I hope will help all the small shopkeepers in his constituency.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

We heard today that house building fell to an all-time record low of 121,000 and that the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government has produced a report that condemns the Government’s regeneration policy. Areas such as Woodnook in my constituency are really suffering. Last week, Shelter revealed that in 55% of local authorities people are being priced out. When will the Housing Minister come to the Floor of the House and debate the debacle that is the Government’s housing policy? Let us get to the bottom of this because it is a disgrace.

[Sir George Young]

There was an exchange on housing on Monday when we had Communities and Local Government questions. We have taken a number of initiatives to promote housing. There is the new homes bonus to encourage local authorities, there is our streamlining of the planning system to remove unnecessary delays and, crucially, as we heard in the previous statement, there are low interest rates, which are crucial to enable first-time buyers to get on to the housing ladder. I hope that a combination of those measures will lead to a revival in house building, and it is worth reminding the hon. Gentleman that we had the lowest output in peacetime since the 1920s under the previous Government.