Jack Dromey
Main Page: Jack Dromey (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Emma Reynolds
I will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman, because in 2012-13 his Government built only 107,000 homes. We are talking about doubling that number. [Interruption.] Actually, the number of social homes has not gone up—I will come to that.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
I was somewhat surprised by the intervention that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) made. Can my hon. Friend confirm that under the Labour Government, not only were there 2 million new homes, 1 million more mortgage holders and half a million more affordable homes, including 256,000 in the last five years of the Government, but 1.6 million social homes were brought up to standard through the decent homes standard, transforming the lives of millions of tenants?
Emma Reynolds
The decent homes programme was one of the Labour Government’s proudest achievements. It transformed the homes and lives of millions of people in council houses. I say to the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) that in our last year in office, we started 39,000 social homes. In the past year, the current Government started 3,900. I will come later to the affordable homes cliff edge over which they are presiding.
Millions of people across the country face the insecurity of private renting, not knowing whether they will be evicted from one year to the next or even one month to the next. Young people and families are watching as their dream of home ownership, which their parents and grandparents were able to achieve, slips out of reach.
The housing shortage is central to the biggest challenge facing Britain today—the cost of living crisis. We know that on average, working people are more than £1,600 a year worse off under this out-of-touch Government, but the problem is about more than just the pound in people’s pocket. It is about the insecurity that people feel, often in their workplaces and sometimes in their homes, and about the prospects of the next generation, with many parents feeling that their children will be worse off than they are.
Kris Hopkins
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only were skills lost, not only were small and medium-sized businesses lost, but the companies that made the products that built the houses were lost as well. I remember visiting that site and talking to the foreman, who had been in a hut protecting the site for the best part of four years. I saw him on television the other day. The company is thriving. I said earlier that the industry was becoming stronger, and it is. At every level, whether we are talking about attracting young people to the sector or about encouraging investors to invest in the manufacturing of materials for house building, the industry is growing, and we should celebrate that boost to our economy.
We are extending the life of the Help to Buy scheme, thus giving some stability to the industry. One of the main points that have been made to me by its representatives is that they do not want a cycle of boom and bust; what they want is some consistency. They want to see products that will give a long life to house building, and if those products are there, they will invest. Some 1,200 businesses have signed up to the Help to Buy equity scheme, and more than 90% of them are small and medium-sized businesses.
Jack Dromey
Dawn frequently breaks to reveal the Prime Minister descending on a building site in wellington boots and a high-visibility jacket. We have heard 70 separate announcements of schemes including New Buy, First Buy, Build to Rent and Help to Buy. Will the Housing Minister explain why his own Department has forecast a 4% fall in new build housing starts next year?
Kris Hopkins
The reason the Prime Minister appears on building sites is that he supports the housing industry, the reason I visit them is that I support the housing industry, and the reason the hon. Gentleman and his predecessors could not visit them is that they had crashed the housing industry and nothing was being built. As for leaked documents, I am not going to comment, but what I will say is that every element of our Department seeks—whether through planning, supporting skills or supporting small businesses—to ensure that we have sufficient starts to take advantage of the housing offer that is out there and to enable the housing industry to grow.