Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

And a great village Hook Norton is, and it is the home to a fantastic brewery. I hear what my hon. Friend says and I will certainly undertake to meet her, or I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning will.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Local communities in York desperately need family housing built for social rent on the 35-hectare York central site, yet we hear that high-value flats are going to be placed on that site. Will the Minister listen to local communities and ensure their voice is prioritised?

[Mr Jones]

This Government have demonstrated that we want local people to have a strong voice through neighbourhood planning. The issue the hon. Lady mentions is on the record, and her local planning authority should be listening to the concerns and comments of local residents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this, and there will be some discussions at the G7 in Germany this weekend. We have got to a position in which Special Representative León from the UN has been bringing everybody together to try to form a national unity Government. We need to give everything we can to support that process, so that there is some prospect of Libya having a Government, from which can flow some security, from which can flow the ability to start to deal with this migrant crisis in the way I discussed earlier.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q14. Under the right-to-buy plan, three social houses will need to be sold to generate enough revenue to build one new one, leaving 1,500 families in York without a home for well over two years. Is that what the Prime Minister means by aspiration?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me welcome the hon. Lady to the House and congratulate her on her election victory. There are two things we are doing to provide these replacement houses. One is obviously that for every housing association that sells a home, it has that receipt and is able to build a new house. We are also making sure that councils sell off the most expensive council houses when they become vacant. In parts of London, there are council houses worth over £1 million, with which many more houses can be built. What is clear from this Question Time is that Conservative Members understand home ownership, aspiration and people wanting to get on. Labour Members, after the most catastrophic election defeat in years, cannot even begin to spell aspiration.