New Housing Supply
Debate between Richard Bacon and Heidi Alexander
Heidi Alexander
I totally agree with my hon. Friend, and our hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) made a similar point. We are lining the pockets of private landlords on an industrial scale. There are no two ways about it.
Another suggestion I would put to the Minister relates to public land. The Government often talk about releasing public land to deliver new homes. There is a lot of rhetoric about this, and we do not see a huge amount of progress. In my constituency, we are experiencing the possibility of Lewisham hospital having two thirds of its land and buildings sold off. There are many hospitals in London for which significant land disposals are going to take place. What discussions has the Minister had with his colleagues in the Department of Health? If these disposals are going to happen—let me be clear that I am very much against it for Lewisham—can we secure requirements for 50% of the land to be used for affordable housing, as these are considerable sites of public land?
I would like feedback from the Minister on what he is doing with other public sector bodies to parcel up land to make it available to small and medium-sized builders. When this country was building the amount of housing it needed to meet the demand many decades ago, we saw small and medium-sized builders providing a far greater proportion of the homes built. At the moment, 75% of new homes come from seven of the largest house builders. If we could find a way of parcelling up the public sector land, enabling small and medium-sized builders to get hold of it for building purposes, that could be a win-win situation.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
I am listening with interest to what the hon. Lady says about finding new ways to parcel up land. Is she aware that local authorities have an obligation—I add that quite a few of them are not aware of it—to measure demand for self-build in their areas, and then to say what they are going to do about it? If we look at the experience of other countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and France, we find that a much higher proportion of total building is done not by large house builders, but by people for themselves, in some cases with the help of local authorities.
Heidi Alexander
One of the recommendations in the Select Committee’s report is that the opportunities for self-build do exist. I will conclude on that note, grateful for having had the opportunity to contribute to the debate.