Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

I know that my hon. Friend has a long history of being interested in this programme. He will be pleased to know that the evaluation reports published in December showed promising progress, particularly with regard to children in need. Further findings will be published in the annual report, and I look forward to discussing them at length with my hon. Friend then.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

T3. The current definition of affordable housing, introduced by the coalition Government, is set at 80% of local market rate, but when house prices are spiralling out of control, as they are in my constituency, this definition of affordable housing is a cruel joke to those on low or median income. Will the Secretary of State commit to replacing this absurd definition so that housing can be genuinely affordable to my constituents?

[The Minister for Housing (Dominic Raab)]

I understand the issue the hon. Lady raises. I would just say that the numbers on social housing waiting lists are down by half a million since 2010, and the number of affordable homes in total, including social housing, is higher in the last seven years than in the last seven years of the last Labour Government. However, we are anxious to do even more. I am not sure that fiddling with the criteria for how these things are measured is the answer. We need to build more homes across the board and I welcome the hon. Lady’s support in that regard.