Housing Reform
Debate between Grant Shapps and Michael Meacher
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about our burning ambition to ensure that we out-build—in social houses as well as in houses generally—anything that happened in the previous decade or two. He is also right that building on public sector land is an ambitious programme. I can update the House by saying that we have identified sufficient land for about 82,000 homes so far. That is without going through all Government Departments and arm’s length bodies. Indeed, we have not gone through the smaller sites—those for less than 40 homes—that could be used fruitfully to build houses. I am not familiar with the site that my hon. Friend has mentioned, but I would be very happy to discuss it with him.
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
How can the Minister justify encouraging home buyers to raid their pension pots to pay down their deposit, which would be a reckless running down of limited pension savings for retirement? Will not mortgage indemnification lead to losses of millions for taxpayers when home buyers are forced in their thousands to default as a result of prolonged and deepening recession and rising unemployment?
Grant Shapps
I do not see it that way at all. For a start, it is not clear that people who are saving for a deposit are at the same time using the same money to save for the pension funds, as the right hon. Gentleman has described. Secondly, it is obviously a lot easier to save £8,000 or £10,000 than to save £35,000 or £40,000, which is the average deposit today, so I do not think that what he says is true. We do not think that the Government will be widely exposed through this scheme for the reasons that I have already described—I will not labour the House by describing them again.