James Berry
Main Page: James Berry (Conservative - Kingston and Surbiton)
James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)
We are all agreed in this House that there is a housing crisis in London. Demand massively outstrips supply and house prices are skyrocketing not just in real terms but in comparison to earnings. In my constituency, the median house price to median earnings ratio has increased from 4.83 in 1997 to 11.86 in 2013. With house prices averaging over £600,000, it is not difficult to see why for young people in Kingston home ownership is not a dream long-deferred, but perhaps a dream denied. We want young people to remain in London as a place to live, not just as a place to commute to for work.
The solution to the housing crisis in London—there was no dispute about this in all the hustings I attended before the election—is to build significantly more houses. The Bill provides an impetus for building starter homes and massively increasing home ownership. It is fair to observe, as Opposition and Government Members have, that not everyone will be able to afford starter houses. That is why the Bill is not an all-encompassing solution to London’s housing crisis. Starter homes have to be seen as part of a mix of new housing provisions, including schemes such as shared ownership and estate regeneration, which we are embarking on in Kingston.
The question is really this: where are we going to build all these houses? I am pleased that the Bill helps local authorities by identifying brownfield sites. In addition, that must go hand in glove with the work of the London Land Commission that the Mayor has tasked with identifying publicly owned land in London. It saddens me, in going around my constituency to my surgeries, to go past disused publicly owned land when we are crying out for affordable housing and land for primary schools. It is about time that Government Departments and quangos got out of the way and released this land that is lying fallow.
Labour Members have expressed concern that the Bill will lead to a reduction in affordable houses in London, so I will put my name to the amendment tabled by my constituency neighbour and the next Mayor of London, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), to ensure that that does not happen. The amendment will place a duty on the Secretary of State and the Mayor, working with local housing authorities, to achieve at least two units of affordable housing in return for the disposal of each unit of high-value social housing in London. We must ensure that at least two houses are built for every one that is sold, which is why I will be pleased to sign my hon. Friend’s amendment.
James Berry
I am sorry but I will not.
I reject the amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats—I see that the eighth of the party that proposed it is no longer here—coming as it does from the party that talks a great game on housing and the vulnerable, but fails to deliver. Take the local authority in my constituency. The area was controlled by a Lib Dem council until 2013, yet it has one of the worst records for house building—including affordable house building—in London. What did the leader of Kingston Council until 2014 say about that: “Hindsight is a wonderful thing.” I think that is a shameful response to the 6,000 people on council house waiting lists in Kingston, and to young people who have grown up or come to my constituency to go to university but can no longer afford to live there. It is typical of a party that is quick to criticise yet slow to accept criticism.
Whatever the Government’s efforts to increase home ownership, it is inevitable that a large number of people will continue to rent. I support the Government’s intention to create a rogue landlord and letting agent database, and for London I encourage further devolution of that database to the Mayor, so that it works hand in glove with his efforts to accredit good landlords. I would like the Government to consider in detail the proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson) to have a database for all landlords and letting agents—
