Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

My hon. Friend highlights the interesting point that a local authority is sending this subsidy back and then claiming that it cannot look after people. That local authority should be answering to local people, doing the right thing and using the subsidy for the purpose the Government set out in the first place.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know that one of the many proud achievements of the last Labour Government was the rise in the number of families able to realise their dream of owning their own home—the number was up by 1 million over 13 years. Will the Minister tell us what has happened to the number of homeowners since Conservative Ministers took charge in 2010?

[Brandon Lewis]

I find it interesting that the right hon. Gentleman raises this question, bearing in mind the fact that, as a Minister, he said he thought a fall in home ownership was not a bad thing. I disagree with him on that, as I do on other things. I think home ownership is something people aspire to, and we should support it. I am proud that the number of first-time buyers has doubled since 2010. Our work through the Housing and Planning Bill will take that further, and we must go further to support those aspirations.

[John Healey]

Let me repeat: the number of homeowners under Labour was up by 1 million. Since 2010, it is down by 200,000. For young people, it is now in free fall, and they have little or no hope of ever being able to buy their own homes. Never mind the spin or short-term policies, the Minister has no long-term plan for housing. That is why I have commissioned the independent Redfern review to look at the decline in home ownership. We would welcome evidence from Ministers, but will the Minister at least agree to look at the review’s findings, so that five years of failure on home ownership do not turn into 10?

[Brandon Lewis]

Coming from somebody who oversaw the lowest level of house building since roughly 1923, that was interesting, particularly as the Redfern review is being led by Pete Redfern of Taylor Wimpey, who has called for an end to Help to Buy—the very product that is helping tens of thousands more people into home ownership. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is about to tell us that the Labour party will end Help to Buy, which is helping so many people. It is a shame that he and his party voted against the Housing and Planning Bill, which will deliver starter homes through increased Help to Buy. These measures will make sure that more homes are built for those who are working hard and who aspire to own their own homes—the very people let down by the crash under Labour.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As my hon. Friend will know, we are very keen to see more and more localism and devolution of power, but I am happy to tell him that this Government will not allow us to fall into the trap that Labour often encourages people to fall into. The reality is that rent controls simply drive supply down and end up increasing rents, so we are very much against them and they will not be allowed under this Government.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

The Minister has talked about extra housing investment, and I would not want him or the Chancellor, who has said the same thing, to mislead the House. After the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the annual housing investment from the Government will be £1.7 billion. Under the money inherited in 2010 from Labour, it was £3.1 billion—not an increase, but a cut; not a doubling, but almost a halving. Does the Minister agree, therefore, that this must be the reason why his Government have built 30,000 fewer affordable homes to buy via shared ownership than Labour did in our last five years?

[Brandon Lewis]

I am somewhat surprised that the right hon. Gentleman should ask a question of that type, bearing in mind that he was the Minister who oversaw the lowest level of housing starts in this country since the 1920s. What the Chancellor has now done has meant that this Government are overseeing the biggest building programme in about 30 years.

[John Healey]

The Minister is wrong on the big picture as well. Under our national affordable housing programme, the number of homes built each year was bigger than under the last Government when he was the Minister. The hard truth is that for so many people, the dream of buying their own home is totally unaffordable and out of reach. Now the hon. Gentleman plans to fiddle the figures again by changing the definition of “affordable” to include so-called “starter homes” that can be sold at up to £450,000. Will he at least agree with Labour and the Building Societies Association, whose members will lend for these homes, that the discount on these starter homes should be permanent, not a cash windfall at the end of five years, but there for the next generation of first-time buyers as well?

[Brandon Lewis]

I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman and I have a big disagreement on this. He seems to want to stop property owners having the right to deal with their property in the way that any other property owner would, but we want to support people who aspire to own their own home. That is why we want to keep building more homes generally and keep building more homes for people at that discount rate for first-time buyers. We are proud that under the Conservative-led coalition during the last Parliament, we oversaw an increase in affordable homes—unlike the loss of 420,000 that we saw under 13 years of Labour.

Typhoon Haiyan

John Healey Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

That is an interesting suggestion. It might prove to be an expensive way of ensuring that we can reach people quickly, but we are always open to ideas. I should say that the medical team on Illustrious has already treated two children with infected wounds who unfortunately needed to have limbs amputated. That saved their lives, so we can see how our Royal Navy provides support to people who are in desperate need, and we should be proud of the work that it is doing.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) will be going to the Philippines this weekend to see the situation for himself. Perhaps he will find out how far the Secretary of State’s £5 million will stretch in helping those four cities to prepare to defend themselves in the future. The most shocking fact in the Secretary of State’s statement was that, three weeks on, three quarters of the people who need shelter do not yet have it. Will she tell the House what she is doing to overcome that disastrous situation?

[Justine Greening]

I mentioned that fact in my statement because it is shocking and sets out the scale of the challenge facing us. The typhoon hit a country that has a lot of disparate communities on outlying islands. One of the reasons why we sent out Daring and Illustrious was to get to those western islands in the Philippines that would otherwise not be reached. Obviously, there has been significant focus on Tacloban, but less focus on the area to the west of Tacloban. A lot of work is under way. I flagged up the issue of shelter because it is one of the main things on which we are working with the UN. We have sent significant numbers of shelter kits and six flights will be going out to the region this week. The very generous response of the UK public to the DEC appeal will mean that our leading NGOs will also have the resources to provide the critical shelter about which the right hon. Gentleman talks.