Kris Hopkins
Main Page: Kris Hopkins (Conservative - Keighley)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Kris Hopkins)
It is a pleasure to stand here and have the opportunity to talk about a vital part of our economy—this country’s housing industry. The industry is growing in strength and confidence. More homes have been built since 2007—a 31% increase in new homes in the last year alone. Planning consents have reached 216,000 in the last year.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
On a point of clarification, will the Minister explain the basis of the figures he has just provided to show that more homes have been built since 2007? What is the source of that information?
Kris Hopkins
What we do is add up all the numbers of houses that have been built; and more have been built since 2007. As I said, planning consents have now reached 216,000, and the top 10 building companies are at their maximum capacity and are planning to grow a further 15% in the next year.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Let me ask the question in a different way. The Minister’s predecessor said that the Government’s target was to build more homes than were being built before the recession—not in 2010, but before the recession. Will the Minister explain in which year of this Parliament the Government have achieved that target?
Kris Hopkins
The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. We have gone through a massive crisis since 2007—I shall say more about it in a few minutes—and responsibility lay solely at the feet of the Government of whom the hon. Gentleman was part. We have been picking up the pieces ever since, and we aspire to deliver the houses that the country needs.
The Government’s affordable housing scheme is on track to deliver 170,000 houses as promised, and the houses committed by the previous Government are already delivered, demonstrating that we have delivered some 200,000 houses to date. We are so keen to accelerate the number of affordable houses that we are bringing forward our 2015-18 affordable housing programme and we want to deliver those much-needed affordable houses right across the country as soon as possible.
Caroline Lucas
If the Minister is really so keen to build genuinely affordable housing, why will the Government not lift the borrowing cap on local authorities? Why are they so obsessed with worrying about public sector debt levels, given that borrowing for council housing is known to be a really safe investment? Other countries do not include it in public sector borrowing, and we should not do so either.
Kris Hopkins
It is clear that the hon. Lady’s party does not care about the economy of this country. It is quite happy to add to the deficit that was created by the last Administration. This Government have taken opportunities to raise the housing revenue account cap by some £300 million, and we look forward to seeing those houses being built.
More council houses have been built in the last four years, under this Government, than were built in the previous 13 years. As a result of the right to buy, some 19,000 hard-working individuals and their families have secured their own homes. That rejuvenated scheme has delivered some 10,000 more homes than was predicted, and we have promised to provide a replacement for every house that is sold. So far, some 3,000 new council houses have been built with right-to-buy receipts.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Will the Minister explain why housing associations are being required not only to let newly built homes at 80% of market rent, but to turn over part of our existing stock as it becomes vacant and let it at that level of rent in order to obtain a building grant at all?
Kris Hopkins
What is of key importance is for local authorities and housing associations to understand their stock, and to redesign, restructure and, where necessary, rebuild it to reflect local demand. [Interruption.] That is the answer.
So far, receipts from right-to-buy sales have ensured that some £420 million is available for the building of houses. We want councils to build them more quickly, and we are pushing them to do so, but I think that the Government should be extremely proud of the fact that 3,000 new homes have already been delivered as a result of the extra growth that generated those 10,000 sales.
In the Budget, the Chancellor announced that £300 million in HRA funding would be provided so that more council houses could be built. The prospectus has gone out, and we have received some responses. We will keep pushing councils to deliver those houses. Whatever the tenure, whether we are talking about private, affordable or social housing, this Government want to support the housing industry that is delivering it.
One of the tragedies that came out of the 2008 housing crash and the resulting recession, the deepest since the 1920s, was the loss of jobs. Some 250,000 people—a quarter of a million—lost their livelihoods: their wage packets disappeared. Many thousands of small and medium-sized building and construction firms were lost as a consequence of the dying days of the last Labour Administration, and the loss of that capacity—a direct result of the crash—is still being felt today. That is why the Government want to attract more young apprentices to the sector to secure the future of the housing and construction industry. Thousands of the 1.8 million apprentices whom the Government have supported so far—some 14,000 of them in the building and construction industry alone—are now the plumbers, chippies and brickies who are required to build the houses.
We have put together a builders fund worth a quarter of a billion pounds to support those small and medium-sized businesses, and we are ensuring that they can gain access to it so that they can build on smaller sites. A bidding process is about to end, and we look forward to making announcements in the future. We need to increase capacity, and to do that we need skills—the skills that were lost.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I wonder whether my hon. Friend recalls a visit that he made on 24 January to Claughton Manor Brickworks in my constituency. It was forced to close in 2009 because there was no demand for bricks, and 35 jobs were lost. It reopened in 2013, and is now at full capacity, employing 38 people and producing bricks for tens of thousands of new houses.
Kris Hopkins
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only were skills lost, not only were small and medium-sized businesses lost, but the companies that made the products that built the houses were lost as well. I remember visiting that site and talking to the foreman, who had been in a hut protecting the site for the best part of four years. I saw him on television the other day. The company is thriving. I said earlier that the industry was becoming stronger, and it is. At every level, whether we are talking about attracting young people to the sector or about encouraging investors to invest in the manufacturing of materials for house building, the industry is growing, and we should celebrate that boost to our economy.
We are extending the life of the Help to Buy scheme, thus giving some stability to the industry. One of the main points that have been made to me by its representatives is that they do not want a cycle of boom and bust; what they want is some consistency. They want to see products that will give a long life to house building, and if those products are there, they will invest. Some 1,200 businesses have signed up to the Help to Buy equity scheme, and more than 90% of them are small and medium-sized businesses.
Jack Dromey
Dawn frequently breaks to reveal the Prime Minister descending on a building site in wellington boots and a high-visibility jacket. We have heard 70 separate announcements of schemes including New Buy, First Buy, Build to Rent and Help to Buy. Will the Housing Minister explain why his own Department has forecast a 4% fall in new build housing starts next year?
Kris Hopkins
The reason the Prime Minister appears on building sites is that he supports the housing industry, the reason I visit them is that I support the housing industry, and the reason the hon. Gentleman and his predecessors could not visit them is that they had crashed the housing industry and nothing was being built. As for leaked documents, I am not going to comment, but what I will say is that every element of our Department seeks—whether through planning, supporting skills or supporting small businesses—to ensure that we have sufficient starts to take advantage of the housing offer that is out there and to enable the housing industry to grow.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister still has not explained why we have the lowest number of housing starts on record, and why the number is likely to be lower this year than last year. As well as spreading all the news of the developments that are heartening, why does he not address the real problems that affect house building at present?
Kris Hopkins
The reason house building is still a challenge is that the Government of which the hon. Gentleman was a member broke the economy, borrowed too much, crashed the banking system, and wiped out a quarter of a million jobs. That is why it is taking so long to put house building back on track, but it is becoming stronger.
As a direct consequence of our extending Help to Buy to 2020, we will deliver some 120,000 new homes. Help to Buy will continue to be a success. Some 30,000 homes have already been delivered, 87% of them to first-time buyers, and 91% are outside London. The average house price is about £151,000, well below the average price of a house in this country at the moment.
Kris Hopkins
The total Help to Buy figure, covering both guarantee and equity, is some 36,000. I was talking about the number of new homes built, which is 30,000. Those 30,000 houses have been built because businesses have taken up the Help to Buy scheme. Again, this intervention—this building of new homes—is specifically to help hard-working individuals get on the housing ladder. This intervention is there to help people who could not secure a mortgage or get a deposit together, but it is not only helping the hard-working individual; it is also supporting businesses. For every house that is built, a new job is created. The 30,000 that have come directly from Help to Buy contribute to the 1.7 million private sector jobs this Government have delivered.
As much as the small and medium-sized businesses are really important, and as much as the top 10 builders out there are extremely important in terms of capacity, we also need to expand our large-site developments. So far, our large-sites programme has provided some 80,000 new homes, but unlike the last Government with their failed eco-towns, which failed to deliver a single home, we will listen to local councils, we will support local plans, and we will encourage locally led interventions to deliver housing at scale. The garden city proposals were published in April and we look forward to continued discussions with localities about driving out those houses.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Where does the Minister expect those new garden cities to be built?
Kris Hopkins
Having put a prospectus out there, I am not going to declare that to you. The key thing is that where individuals come forward—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We do not use the term “you” in that way. The Minister is not referring to me. I am sure that rule is for the benefit of the House.
Kris Hopkins
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. The key is that where local authorities come forward, we will enter into discussion with them and hope to deliver that.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Does the Minister share my alarm about the words of Sir Michael Lyons on Labour’s review? The Minister has just discussed some of the hard-won commitments the Government have made to local plans and local accountability. Does he share my fear that Labour would return us to the bad old days of strict, authoritarian, top-down control?
Kris Hopkins
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The last Government went around the country telling local people what they had to do. This Government have laid out our desire to encourage local plans to come forward—to trust local authorities, to understand their local needs, and to have that dialogue with their public and come back with those approved plans. I will be shocked if Labour is again suggesting that it will dictate from Whitehall what communities will have to deliver.
Jeremy Corbyn
I am interested in the Minister’s view that powers should be returned to local government. In that respect, will he review the permitted development rights that have been imposed on local government, whereby an office block can be converted into housing with no social content whatsoever and no requirement for planning permission? Does he not think it would be better if local government were able to determine what happened to those buildings and the number of social homes that were included in any developments?
Kris Hopkins
I disagree with the point the hon. Gentleman makes. The key point is that there are lots of people who are desperate to secure their own home and, whatever the vehicle is, we need to support them in that process.
Mr Slaughter
Does the Minister have any interest in homes that are affordable on low and average incomes? In London, the targets the Mayor sets are £80,000 in income for larger properties and £66,000 for one and two-bedroom flats. Does the Minister think those are reasonable figures for affordable homes?
Kris Hopkins
I am not going to take any lectures about affordable or social housing. The last Government failed to deliver sufficient social housing at a time of economic boom. They did not build the housing required. They did not address the issue of social need. In the most difficult times, however, this Government have stepped up and are delivering those houses. We need to deliver more, but we are setting about delivering that.
Kris Hopkins
No, I am going to continue.
The key aim is to expand capacity, and one of the ways we are doing that is by encouraging—right across the country—the private rented sector. Thousands of individuals rent their homes, and the vast majority of them rent their homes from good landlords, but there are a few who are damaging the market and failing their tenants, and that is why this Government have set about introducing powers to pursue those individuals and have put moneys out there for councils to make sure we can pursue and prosecute those individuals who fail their tenants.
Bill Esterson
I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests.
The Minister rightly mentions private renting, as not everybody wants to buy; some want to rent, and some do not have any choice. Does he recognise the impact on children of having to move constantly because of the nature of the private rental market, and does he accept that Labour has very sound proposals on longer-term tenancies to deal with exactly that sort of problem?
Kris Hopkins
The key point is that Labour was in power for 13 years and did not address this, whereas we have gone out there and put together a model tenancy that we plan to announce in the near future, and that will address that very issue about extending tenancies, through a negotiation between the landlord and the individual, to give some certainty, particularly for families.
We want to make sure that the private rented sector grows. We want it to be bigger, better and more professional, so that it attracts investors to take a long-term financial view, rather than having the short-term return model currently associated with this sector, which is why we went out there with a £1 billion Build to Rent scheme—a loan scheme. The first round has allocated some £124 million, which will deliver some 16,000 houses, and we are now in contact with further individuals and organisations and will make those announcements in the near future. The bulk of that £1 billion was in round two and we are in detailed negotiations about 16 projects. It is a very important part of the offer to grow and build on the private sector, to challenge poor behaviour, and to make sure we have high-quality private rented houses available.
In conclusion, we are not complacent about the position we are in. We picked up a smashed and broken industry. A strong industry is now emerging, but it has taken time to address and fix the problems left by the last Government—the banking industry issue, the lost jobs and skills, the factories that went to the wall. We are rebuilding the companies that failed and giving them the confidence to come forward and invest. So far, some 440,000 new homes have been delivered, but that is not enough, and we are determined to deliver more. I have to say to the House, however, that regardless of what I have said here today, this will be down to the graft of those individuals on the building and construction sites out there, it will be down to the risk takers who are investing in house building again, and it will be down to the young apprentices who are making a commitment to learning and developing their new career skills. The role of this Government is to support those champions of that industry. Every part of this Government is committed to delivering new homes—the homes that are needed—and I ask the House to reject this motion.