Housing (London)
Debate between Heidi Alexander and Nadine Dorries(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Heidi Alexander
I do. In my experience, it is especially difficult for people with families who are trying to buy a two or three-bedroom shared-ownership property. They have to be earning in the region of £40,000 a year before they can access such properties.
Nadine Dorries
Many moons ago—some in this room may not even have been born—in 1978, as a newly qualified nurse on a newly qualified nurse’s salary, I was able to buy my own home independently without a partner. Compare that with today, when there is absolutely no possibility of a newly qualified nurse buying a home in London.
Heidi Alexander
I have met nurses in my constituency who might be able to afford to buy a flat elsewhere in the country, but in London that is simply impossible. I have not dreamt up the nurse, the rough sleeper on a bench in a railway station or the others whom I have described; they are real people whom I have met and spoken to in the past few years. I am not surprised when I read that 82% of Londoners think that the capital is in the grip of a full-scale housing crisis, or that 27% believe the affordability of housing to be the most important issue facing the capital, because I hear the same thing week in, week out.
One of the most common conversations that I have at my fortnightly advice surgeries is about the huge mismatch between the demand for and the supply of affordable homes in London. I see family after family living in overcrowded conditions who want to move to a suitably sized property at a rent that they can afford. I say “rent”, because the idea of buying a home is completely out of reach for many. Someone on a minimum-wage job lucky enough to be working full time—that is quite a big assumption—earns less than £12,000 a year. The idea that there is any property in London that they could afford to buy is laughable.
The truth is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead said, that if I had not been in the fortunate position of buying a home with my husband, many parts of my constituency—that is Lewisham, not Kensington or Chelsea—would be unaffordable for me as an MP on a salary of £68,000. I do not say that to plead poverty; I recognise that I am very well off. However, my situation demonstrates that the housing market in London is such that people in many different walks of life cannot afford the modest home that they would like.