Kit Malthouse
Main Page: Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Brandon Lewis
On the properties the hon. Lady outlined, in the deal itself and the right to buy there are exemptions, but I do sympathise with her point. I understand how the Scottish Government came to the point that they did in terms of the frustration with housing supply because, as I have just outlined, Labour simply did not build the houses over their 13 years in government. The answer is that we need to make sure we are building the houses. I would encourage the Scottish Government that the solution is not to stop people having the right to buy their own home. I would encourage that and use the money from that to build the extra houses we need; if Labour had done that for 13 years, we would not have lost the 420,000 affordable homes that were lost in those years. We have increased those numbers in the last Parliament. We will do so again in this Parliament and, through the money coming in from right to buy, there will be that full replacement income for housing associations to build an extra home; that is the key to this.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State and Minister on this most civilised of solutions. However, may I raise a point I have had discussions with them on on a number of occasions: exemptions for small rural communities where housing association properties are extremely valuable but also extremely hard to replace? Have we had discussions with housing associations about the same exemptions for those small communities as are currently embodied in council house right to buy?
Brandon Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend. He makes a good point. The housing associations have played a hugely important part through the way they have come forward with this deal and have recognised the mandate the Government got in the general election to deliver this. They have done an excellent job in this regard. This is about extending the right to buy and therefore the rural exemptions extend as well. Indeed my hon. Friend can see the deal on the National Housing Federation website and there are some examples there of the very point he has outlined.