Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Graham Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is doing a disservice to local authorities, which have grasped the raised energy standards for new homes over the past few years, increasing them by 30% and saving all our electors, on average, £200 on their energy bills.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

8. What assessment he has made of his Department’s progress on delivering more new homes.

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

The latest figures show that over 222,000 new homes were delivered in England last year—clear progress towards our ambition of delivering 300,000 a year by the mid-2020s. This brings the total number delivered since 2010 to more than 1.3 million.

[Luke Graham]

House building in Scotland has plummeted under the Scottish National party, which, since 2015, has also slashed UK-wide schemes like Help to Buy. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to work with the devolved Administration to make sure that UK-wide schemes are accessible to my constituents so that they do not miss out?

[Kit Malthouse]

As my hon. Friend will know, my writ does not run north of the border. However, I note that in the autumn Budget of 2017, the Scottish Government received Barnett consequentials of almost £1 billion as a result of increased allocations to MHCLG for Help to Buy. I urge him and his colleagues north of the border to keep campaigning—to keep the pressure up—because Help to Buy is enormously popular and is helping many tens of thousands of first-time buyers, in particular, on to the housing ladder. At the very least, they should join him in campaigning for a Conservative victory in the Scottish elections in 2021 to make sure that people will get the homes they need.