Lord Lea of Crondall
Main Page: Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-affiliated - Life peer)My Lords, I do regard it as a good start. As the noble Lord says, we are committed to 1 million new homes by 2021. That is why the Government have put in such a huge amount of money and doubled the budget for housebuilding over this Parliament to £20 billion, which will include all types of tenure and build.
Would the Minister care to comment on the fact that, only a mile from here, there is plenty of building going on in Battersea—1.52 million? There is no problem at all—not a land problem or any other problem. So why is there such an imbalance between that phenomenon and affordable housing for everybody else?
The noble Lord raises the important issue of supply. It is in meeting demand needs and increasing supply that we will start to even out house prices and make them more affordable for younger people—the demographic who have suffered the most from being unable to access the housing market.