Housing Reform

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance: obviously the taxpayer must get the money back in the end. Indeed, I can go one step further in saying that we will impose conditions on how quickly developments are created and houses are built. We can get things moving faster by using that mechanism.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

Given that there are 11,000 long-term and short-term empty properties in my Kirklees council area and 350,000 empty properties in the country as a whole, does my right hon. Friend agree that, while today’s announcements are welcome, we need to give councils and communities greater incentives to bring those empty properties back into use?

[Grant Shapps]

That is absolutely true. Without putting too fine a point on it, it is a scandal that 700,000 or 750,000 properties are empty when so many people are in desperate housing need. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) has rightly pointed out, the housing strategy takes account of all the decisions that have been made to date and then presents new proposals. We concluded that we wanted to add another £50 million to the £100 million fund for empty homes that already existed. We shall certainly want to work with my hon. Friend’s local authority and indeed with everyone else, including social enterprises, to ensure that those empty homes are returned to use.