Joan Ryan
Main Page: Joan Ryan (The Independent Group for Change - Enfield North)
Greg Clark
I will indeed, and again I pay tribute to the work my hon. Friend did in the Department in inaugurating this transfer of powers. Housing will be of great importance in all the deals we are negotiating and expect to conclude. There is an appetite for that right across the country and I will certainly take the advice of the RTPI.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
2. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of home ownership since 2010.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
Annual statistics on trends in home ownership are published in the Department’s English housing survey headline report, and I was pleased that recently it highlighted the fact that the number of first-time buyers is at a seven-year high.
Joan Ryan
Is the Minister aware that the cost of the average house in Enfield has rocketed to over 11 times the average wage in the borough? Home ownership is now at its lowest level in 30 years, and the dream of buying a home is increasingly out of reach. Why are the Government so complacent about declining home ownership and their failure to build?
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Lady should be pleased that we have seen 600 housing starts in her own area over the last year and that, although we inherited from the last Labour Government the lowest level of house building since about 1923, we have seen that level starting to come back thanks to the work this Government have done to deliver the fastest rate of building not just of council homes, but also affordable homes, in about 20 years.