Grenfell Tower

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I spoke about Grenfell Tower in the Westminster Hall debate on Monday, and wish to reiterate some of the remarks I made then.

This is a very important issue for Government Members. For too long, we have hidden behind technocratic debates and technocratic assertions of how much money we have spent or whether the sprinklers were in the right place. I think too few Members on the Government Benches understand the emotional charge of the debate about Grenfell. It was an appalling tragedy. It has been described, quite rightly, as a national scandal.

I know the area reasonably well: my mother had two cousins who lived in Trellick Tower when it was social housing, so I spent time there and know the area. One of the problems is that in the ’80s the people who lived in the tower—people who lived in social housing—felt far more like members of the community than perhaps is the case now. Today, the suspicion is that as the royal borough has got wealthier and wealthier, the political class—the people running the borough—have forgotten some of the less-advantaged members of their community. It has become very much a place of bankers, millionaires and hedge fund owners, and I have heard that the people who lived in Grenfell Tower had felt more and more isolated over the past 20 or 30 years.

For people on this side of the House—for Conservatives —this is a very big problem. Members on these Benches do not often like to talk about inequality, but in this instance there was an issue of a polarised society between the haves and the have-nots. The suspicion has always been that the borough and the political forces that shape people’s lives have been less and less involved in and interested in the lives of more vulnerable people, poorer people and immigrants.

That is a huge challenge for my right hon. Friend who has just entered his post as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. His tenure will very much be judged by his response to this appalling tragedy. As other Members have said, we can debate this endlessly—we can use warm words and exchange speeches—but I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he should have an action plan and a list of tangible things that he wants to achieve that can actually benefit people on the ground. There is no end of words and speeches but, as people have said, we need action. Frankly, the Government and the Conservative party, which was in charge nationally and locally, will very much be judged on the outcome. This is something from which we should not be allowed to walk away.

[Karen Lee]

It is about not just action, but timely action. The Prime Minister has made an announcement on the removal of the cladding, but yet again there is no timescale.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I fully endorse what has been said about that. One of the difficulties and sadnesses of this whole process has been that although the Government have given with one hand, what they have granted has been perceived as having been given slowly, grudgingly and reluctantly. A situation like this is all about hearts and minds. As a Government and a party, we have to bend over backwards to ensure that people have trust in or a modicum of respect for the process. If there is any hint or suspicion that people do not care, or if people feel that they have to jump over a series of administrative hurdles, we will lose a huge amount of good will from the people who matter the most in this tragedy: the victims and their families.

Housing and Homes

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who made some interesting remarks.

We also have to mention in the debate that the housing crisis, such as it is, is a localised crisis; too often in this Chamber we feel that London and the south-east represent the whole country. The housing crisis is particularly acute in the south-east, in constituencies such as mine, and there is huge demand for housing. However, that problem, such as it is, did not come out of a clear blue sky. It has evolved over the last several decades—20 or 30 years—and both of the parties that have shared government over that time have some responsibility for it.

There were two notable features of the period between 1997 and 2010 that have made the problem more acute. First, there was a huge increase in house prices. We only need to look at a place such as Spelthorne, let alone London itself, to see that there was a huge accretion of wealth. Asset prices went through the roof and the Labour Government of the time were relatively happy about that. One of their Ministers said that he was quite happy and relaxed about people being “filthy rich”—I think that that was the phrase used. So there was a boom-time atmosphere that increased asset prices.

The other thing that happened was that we had lots of net immigration. I know that it is not very fashionable to say that but clearly house prices have something to do with demand, and demand for housing has something to do with population increases. That is something that we should be honest about in this House. A Government looking at the problem will try to build more houses, and that is exactly what Her Majesty’s Government are trying to do. There is a commitment to expand the supply so that house prices will not increase in the way that they have done in the recent past, and that is to be welcomed.

The abolition of stamp duty for first-time buyers is also a very good thing. It is an excellent policy, yet I remember that, when the Chancellor announced it at the Dispatch Box, there was a howl of protest from Opposition Members. I think that someone rather resourcefully looked at the Red Book and suggested that prices would increase by 0.3%, ignoring the fact that the abolition of the stamp duty represented way more than that in terms of the help it gave. They said that that was a critical point which meant that it was a failing policy.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I would ordinarily want to agree with the hon. Gentleman, but if I did so on this, we would both be wrong. He is talking about the abolition of stamp duty, but in my constituency the number of properties available to first-time buyers at between £200,000 and £400,000 is almost nil, so the policy is of very little benefit to my constituents. It is a subsidy for London and the south-east at the expense of the north and the west midlands.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

If the hon. Gentleman had been paying attention to my speech, he would have heard me say that this was a highly localised problem. I made it clear that the position with pricing was acutely felt in constituencies such as mine. I cannot speak for his constituency, but in the context of the south-east, my constituents tell me that the abolition has been very welcome.

[Mr Jayawardena]

As my hon. Friend says, the abolition has had a demonstrable impact on first-time buyers. That has certainly been the case in North East Hampshire. Does he agree, however, that more work is required to help second-steppers who are looking to move up the housing ladder?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments.

The abolition of stamp duty for first-time buyers was an example of the Government trying to help people—perhaps not in the constituency of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), but certainly in constituencies such as mine—and it was widely appreciated. People were very happy to hear that that was what the Government had done.

On the subject of leasehold, I happen to share many of the sentiments that have been expressed today. The property law relating to leasehold is extremely complicated. Anecdotally, I know that, in the part of north-west London where my parents live, for example, flats with 125-year leases are being sold for huge amounts of money. Obviously, the value of those properties will decrease substantially as the lease runs out, and there is clearly a sense that developers are using leasehold law to rig the system for their own benefit. We should absolutely be looking at that and trying to stop it happening.

I am sorry to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) is no longer in his place. He made a brave speech earlier, in which he rightly distinguished between homelessness and the housing problem and the more particular problem of rough sleeping, which he rightly suggested was a much more individuated problem than is often suggested. Unlike many people in this House, he has actually experienced rough sleeping. I remember the initial programme that he did 27 years ago—[Interruption.] Well, he has been out on the street. That is more than I have done, and I suggest that it is more than most Opposition Members have done as well. They may mock and ridicule him, but he has actually made that step. He made some very pertinent remarks about the nature of rough sleeping, and he spoke particularly about drug addiction and alcoholism. The social problems associated with rough sleeping should not be used to obscure the wider problems of access to property and of rising prices keeping younger people out of the property market.