Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Raynsford Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams]

As is customary when a Select Committee makes a report, the Government consider it and respond. As that report is from the EFRA Committee and it involves policies that are partly under the remit of this Department, but also the Department for Work and Pensions, I am sure there will be a comprehensive reply to it in due course.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In advising local authorities on how they should bring forward plans for new housing, would the Minister advise them to follow the guidance in the national planning policy framework on meeting the identified needs of their area, whatever those needs might be, or would he advise them to give priority to one-bedroom housing because of the demand for it as a consequence of the bedroom tax?

[Stephen Williams]

I would expect every local plan, whether in Greenwich, Bristol or elsewhere, to take local needs into account. Yes, changes might well be needed in housing stock as a result of welfare reform changes, but we all know that there is a shortage of one-bedroom and two-bedroom properties as a result of our ageing society and of more people living on their own. That shortage needs to be met right across society.