Housing Supply

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am the tail-end Charlie again; that is the position that I like to have in these debates.

What an interesting debate we have had this afternoon. Yet again, the Opposition think that the glass is half empty. They need to look at the whole of the country. They need to look at beautiful South Derbyshire. In 2012-13, not only did we build twice as many houses as the average constituency across the country, but a third of those were affordable houses. South Derbyshire district council, which has been Conservative-led for the past seven years, has been building new council houses. How is it able to do that? By managing the housing revenue account very successfully. All those things are possible when an area has a council that cares about its people, understands value for money and does not waste money. Of course, that Conservative council has not put the rates up for four years, either.

Another reason why this glass-half-empty Opposition debate is astonishing is that they are talking only about new builds, and not about bringing properties back into use. The most imaginative scheme has come from a charity that looks after ex-service people. It has bought two rows of houses in the north-east for £1 a street. The houses are being brought back into use by the people who will live in them. That is not costing the public purse anything. Everybody had written off those houses because they are up in the north-east and stuff does not happen up there. That is not good enough. It is time that the Opposition decided to play a better and bigger part in solving this problem.

There are lots of empty homes in our country. Councils that are using their initiative are not just putting the council tax on empty homes up from 50% to 80%; they are charging 100%, then 110% if the home is still empty the next year, and 120% if it is still empty the year after that. That can go up to 140%, because we want homes to be brought back into use. That is not about restricting people or taxing them out. The council wants the homes to be brought back into use, so it says to the people who own them, “Do you want tenants? Our council housing people will organise tenants for you.” That is done at private rent prices and can involve short-term lets, three-year lets or whatever they want. Innovative councils are bringing empty homes back into use.

I will finish on that point, because I think that Madam Deputy Speaker wants to move things along. I find it so depressing that, as usual, all we get is a mithering, miserable debate from the Opposition. Where are the Opposition Members? Yet again, there has been speaker after speaker from the Government Benches, because we are proud of what we are doing on new housing and on bringing properties back into use. We are proud that we have really good-quality builds, such as the one that the Minister with responsibility for planning, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), kindly came to see in Melbourne in South Derbyshire. We are proud of what we are doing. I say to the Opposition: for goodness’ sake get a grip. Start cheering on what is good about this nation, and stop knocking it.