Lord Naseby
Main Page: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I do not accept what the noble Baroness says. Pensioners are not affected by what she is pleased to call the bedroom tax, but which by everybody else’s standards is called the spare room subsidy measure—I thought that would trip lightly off my lips and would help the noble Baroness enormously. Pensioners living in houses will not be affected by these regulations.
Lord Naseby
Does my noble friend agree that the most important thing in relation to this question is to get new housing moving? As I understand it, my noble friend said 170,000 was the figure in the current year. On top of that, we have two incentives from the Budget—the equity loan and the mortgage guarantee—plus the right-to-buy provisions. Does that not all suggest that, whereas the previous Government had the princely total of 113,670 new houses built in their last year, we look like being not far off doubling that in the year to come?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, there is a great emphasis, as my noble friend knows, on providing new housing. The initiatives which have already been taken by the Government for first-time buyers give support for that. The NewBuy Guarantee, which gives access to 95% mortgages for new-build homes, FirstBuy equity loans, the right to buy, and the Bank of England’s Funding for Lending scheme all indicate that this Government are very supportive of housing and recognise that it helps not only people get their homes but helps the construction industry, which is necessary to get growth.