James Heappey
Main Page: James Heappey (Conservative - Wells)
Greg Clark
I have the figures in front of me and the low point for dwellings started was actually in 2008-09, under the previous Labour Government, when it was 88,000.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
My right hon. Friend mentions the regional statistics. Some 24,000 new homes have been made available in the south-west since 2010, and in Somerset specifically between 1997 and 2010 there were only 440 homes per annum, whereas there have been 900 homes per annum since 2010.
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
The point I wanted to make is not that we have built all the homes that were needed—it would be absurd to say that—but that we have turned around a situation that was proving ruinous and was destroying the aspirations of people up and down the country.