Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Lisa Nandy

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

Do the Government realise how absurd all of this sounds? Their own flagship Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which is currently making its way through the House of Lords, has measures in it to block new homes from being built, and yet the Minister stands here berating councils for getting in the way. All of this is happening because Conservative Back Benchers have more control of housing policy than their Government. So when the local Conservative MP in Cambridge says that his latest scheme “will not happen”, he is probably right, is he not?

[Rachel Maclean]

I do not quite know how to give that a serious response. I have just set out in huge detail all the work backed by public funding—taxpayers’ money—going into delivering the houses that people need up and down the country. As far as I can see, the only people blocking housing development are those such as the hon. Lady, who is objecting to developments in her own constituency.

[Lisa Nandy]

It is literally in the Government’s own Bill—they are trying to block new houses from being built. They have had 17 housing Ministers and three planning overhauls, and house building is at its lowest level for a generation.

[Lisa Nandy]

The Secretary of State wants to talk now—why did he not take the question? I suspect it is because he has again run into so much opposition from his Back Benchers about a story briefed only yesterday that he has had to abandon it. One hundred small and medium-sized house builders have been protesting to Downing Street and mortgages have gone through the roof. It really does take some brass neck to present that as anything other than an appalling record.

I have in my hand an analysis that shows that all this chaos will cost the economy £44 billion. Are the Government the only people left in Britain who cannot admit that the housing crisis, the mortgage crisis, the cost of living crisis and the economic crisis have one cause: Tory government?

[Rachel Maclean]

That was a flight of fantasy with several hundred questions. I am happy to engage with the hon. Lady on the detail of the clauses in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, but I am proud of the Government’s record in bringing forward levelling-up across the whole country, with house building backed by billions of pounds of public funding and taxpayers’ money. As I said in answer to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), our house building record is greater than that of her party for the entire time they were in government.