Grant Shapps
Main Page: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
10. What assessment he has made of the (a) affordability, (b) length of tenure and (c) standards of housing afforded to tenants in the private rented sector.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
The latest report of the English housing survey was published on 9 February. It shows that rents in the private sector have reduced in real terms, that standards have improved and that only 8% of tenancies are terminated before the tenants so choose.
Mr Cunningham
Leaving aside the report, may I ask the Minister what he is doing to drive up standards in the private sector, particularly in relation to rogue landlords?
Grant Shapps
As was indicated in the previous exchange with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I have just held a meeting with the interested parties about rogue landlords. They are a matter of considerable concern, and I will be pulling together all the powers and issuing a booklet on that shortly. The hon. Gentleman rightly asks about the standards, and I can tell him that the number of non-decent homes in the private rented sector has fallen from 47% in 2006 to 37%.
Andrew Gwynne
Given what the Minister has just said, why do his Government seem intent on removing further protections from private tenants, who, in my constituency in particular, are at the mercy of rogue landlords? Should he not be protecting those hard-working tenants and driving up standards in the private rented sector?
Grant Shapps
Although he speaks with great passion, the hon. Gentleman is fundamentally wrong, because I am not removing any of the protections from landlords or tenants in the private rented sector. It is worth remembering that actual measures consistently show that people are happier in the private rented sector than in the social sector, which might surprise him. I can also tell him that 90% of tenancies are ended by the tenant, not by the landlord.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Both the Housing Minister and the Prime Minister, out of touch with reality, have asserted on the Floor of the House of Commons that rents are falling in the private rented sector. An analysis conducted by the House of Commons Library reveals that in 90% of local authorities in England, in all nine regions, rents are rising or staying the same. Will the Housing Minister now admit to the 1.1 million families struggling to pay their rent that he got it wrong?
Grant Shapps
The LSL survey shows that in the three months through to January rents actually fell, but we do not have to believe LSL—[Interruption.] There was rightly some scepticism there—LSL measures only buy to let—so let us instead look at the absolutely authoritative figures recently produced by the English housing survey, which show that in real terms rents have fallen in the past year.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
8. What assessment he has made of the effect of the number of properties in the private rented sector on young people attempting to purchase a home.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
In 2011, in terms of value, buy-to-let mortgages accounted for just 8% of total loans for home purchases. The biggest barrier to home ownership for many young people is not that, but the need to raise a deposit. That is why I know that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the NewBuy scheme, which we launched this morning.
Graham Jones
Obviously, I am aware that over the weekend the Government announced the home buy scheme for new build, which is a shadow of the sub-prime lending that went on previously, so I advise caution. The private rented sector, however, has added about 6% to the value of properties. Does the Minister agree that the issue is rising house prices and the cost of housing, not the availability of mortgages?
Grant Shapps
Just to clarify one point, sub-prime lending happened when people who could not afford to pay a mortgage back were lent money, sometimes as much as 120% of the value of the property. That is nothing to do with today’s NewBuy scheme. I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a keen interest in the private rented sector in particular. He makes a lot of very good and serious points about it and I can inform him that this Friday I intend to come and see him in his constituency to see the problems for myself.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I wonder what will shake the Housing Minister out of his complacency. Surveys show that 90% of private sector tenants would prefer to be living under another form of tenure, but his policies are trapping more and more people in private rented accommodation, paying ever-increasing rents. Despite his rhetoric, the Housing Minister is failing those tenants and failing to achieve his claims that this Government would build more homes than Labour achieved. When will he get a grip on this housing crisis and stop making empty announcements that fail to live up to expectations?
Grant Shapps
I have certainly been shaken out of any sense of complacency by that question, given that it came from a member of a party under whose government we saw house building crash to its lowest level since the 1920s. I can report to the House this afternoon that in the past year alone house building starts in England went up by 25% compared with those in 2009.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to promote the refurbishment of empty and vacant homes.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
16. What assessment he has made of the difference between the number of (a) new homes being built and (b) units qualifying for the new homes bonus; and if he will make a statement. [R]
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
The new homes bonus is calculated in respect of net additions to the effective housing stock, including new build, conversions and empty homes brought back into use.
Mr Raynsford
I draw attention to my interests in the register. I am glad the Minister is beginning to look at the discrepancy in his figures. According to the written answer he gave me on 29 February, in nine local authority areas in England the number of homes qualifying in 2011 for the affordable housing component of the new homes bonus exceeded the total number of homes for which new homes bonus was awarded. As this is clearly total nonsense, will the Minister explain what is going on? Were his statisticians having an off day, or is this another case of the Government not having a clue what they are doing?
Grant Shapps
Unless the right hon. Gentleman is accusing local authorities of being misleading in the paperwork they return, the new homes bonus must surely be, through the council tax base form, the single most accurate way of knowing how many new dwellings there are in this country. I know that he insists that it is something to do with D to H band homes being deregistered and then reregistered as smaller homes, so I have checked the figures and can tell him that they have been falling; the number of deregistrations has gone from 19,000 to 16,000 to 15,000-plus in each of the past three years, categorically disproving his theory once and for all.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
17. What plans he has to promote the right to buy for tenants of social housing.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
I have today announced that we will increase the maximum right-to-buy discount cap for tenants to £75,000 across England from 2 April this year, subject to parliamentary approval. The Government are on the side of those who aspire to own their own homes.
Mr Wilson
The previous shadow Secretary of State slammed home ownership as “the English disease”, which is probably one of the reasons right-to-buy sales fell significantly under the previous Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that home ownership, whether stimulated by the NewBuy guarantee or the right to buy, is not a disease but something that fosters pride and aspiration in our communities?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to explain that the right to buy was savagely cut under the previous Administration, to the point where very few sales went through each year. Today, the coalition Government are reinvigorating and rebooting the right to buy, which will now help up to 100,000 people purchase their own home, with discounts of up to £75,000, and with the money being used to replace those sold with new homes on a one-for-one basis. That, together with the NewBuy guarantee, will ensure that a further 100,000 people will be able to buy their own home. We are on the side of aspirant people who wish to buy the roof over their heads.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
Will the Minister explain and clarify his recent announcement on the £75,000 cap? He spoke today of replacement on a one-for-one basis. Does that mean that he does not mean like-for-like replacement in the same area?
Grant Shapps
Where local authorities can provide the new homes in the same area, we will certainly look to keep the money locally and build in the area. The hon. Lady, as a previous shadow housing Minister—one of the eight I have faced—knows that the money will be used for the affordable rent programme, which will enable us to build 170,000 affordable homes for rent, and this will give us another 100,000 on top of that—far more than the previous Administration built over 13 years.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
20. What plans he has to tackle the abuse of social housing tenancies.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
We have set out proposals to give social landlords the tools to identify and recover properties that have been subject to fraudulent activity via sub-letting.
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his answer. What support can his Department give to local authorities to stop the abusive activity of illegal sub-letting and of those who over-occupy their social tenancy homes, perhaps with friends or family?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to the scale of the problem, which is enormous, perhaps a multi-billion pound per annum scandal, and this Government are absolutely determined to crack down on it. I introduced a consultation on sub-letting, stating that our preferred option is to criminalise the activity. We intend to do exactly what is outlined in the consultation and, in doing so, to end the scandal that means that such homes do not go to the people who rightly need them.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
21. What guidance his Department has issued to the Planning Inspectorate on planning appeals concerning onshore wind farms.
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.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
T3. With the London elections on the horizon, should Londoners elect a Mayor who has frozen the Greater London authority’s share of council tax, keeping more money in people’s pockets, or a man who is more concerned with finding ways of dodging paying his own taxes while increasing everybody else’s taxes?
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
T9. Some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Wolverhampton live in appalling conditions in the private rented sector. Self-regulation is not working, and the Housing Minister’s booklet is unlikely to change anything. When are the Government going to recognise that this sector needs regulating, with, in particular, a compulsory national register of landlords?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to be concerned about the conditions that people live in, and I share that concern very strongly. It is interesting that Labour never introduced a compulsory register in 13 years. It is also interesting that when I came into office and asked to see the sum of work that had been done by my predecessors, the answer was none. There are good reasons why private registers would not work. There are 1.5 million landlords, many of whom are, for example, private individuals letting out one or two rooms. It would be an unworkable system requiring an enormous quango. The answer is to use the existing legislation properly. I will help to advise the hon. Lady’s local authority on precisely how to do that if that is helpful.
Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
T4. Since the reign of Mary Tudor and throughout the vicissitudes of history, Banbury council has started all its meetings with prayer and a recitation of the 84th Psalm. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the general power of competence he has granted local councils will enable those that wish to continue to start their meetings with prayer to do so?
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Will the Minister help me with the problems facing private tenants in my constituency? Almost a third of my constituents are private tenants who pay very high rents in flats and houses that are expensive to heat and often badly maintained. Does he not think that it is time that we had much tougher regulation of the private rented sector, including rent regulation, because rents are astonishingly high for people who are unable to save or to move on from the private rented sector?
Grant Shapps
I had a lot of sympathy with the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question. He and I have discussed this matter before. If we introduce rent controls, which seems to be what he and other Opposition Members are calling for, we know exactly what will happen. Rent controls were introduced after the war and the private rented sector shrunk from 50% of the market to just 8%. When rent controls were removed, that doubled to 16%. The latest figures from the English housing survey show that it is on its way up from there. Rent controls would restrict the market and make it more expensive for exactly the constituents whom the hon. Gentleman is trying to protect.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
T8. As a result of poor contractual arrangements set up by the Labour Government, the East of England Development Agency has received bonuses of more than £250,000, despite it being scrapped. Does the Minister agree that local enterprise partnerships are already showing that not only are they less bureaucratic, but they give a much better return on public investment?
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
Do Ministers agree that spending £80,000 on changing a logo, as Conservative-controlled Nottinghamshire county council has, is an irresponsible use of cash when money is so tight?
Grant Shapps
The good thing about Nottingham county council is that we can see what it is spending. It is a shame that the same cannot be said of Nottingham city council, the only council in the country that refuses to publish its expenditure.