Nick Raynsford
Main Page: Nick Raynsford (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Andrew Stunell
My hon. Friend has been a lively campaigner for more social housing, and rightly so. It is an essential part of the coalition agreement on the right to buy that there will be a one-for-one replacement of every home sold, to provide a new social or affordable home.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
I draw attention to my interest, as declared in the register. The House will have noticed that the Minister’s response to the question about the availability of social rented housing was to use a different term—affordable rented housing. Everyone knows that under this Government, social rented housing has virtually come to a halt. When will they recognise that affordable rented housing depends on very much higher rents, and when the Department for Work and Pensions is cutting housing benefit and the Prime Minister is encouraging even deeper cuts in housing benefit, how can they possibly hope people on low incomes will be able to afford those rents, if social housing is not being provided?
Andrew Stunell
The right hon. Gentleman once sat in my office and he will know that during his period of office he reduced the number of social homes available. In 2011-12 two thirds of homes completed—33,227—were social homes for rent. If he had paid more attention to getting a positive input of social homes during his period of office, we would not have such a deficit to fill now.