Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Rob Butler Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in response to the Queen’s Speech, which laid out an ambitious and exciting programme of legislation. It is a Queen’s Speech to build back better from the pandemic, and it is the literal sense of building that is an intrinsic part of the theme of today’s debate.

A property-owning democracy is at the core of what we as Conservatives believe, and I wholeheartedly share the Prime Minister’s desire to move from generation rent to generation buy. I well remember the day I bought my first flat. It was the realisation of an ambition and the culmination of working hard and saving harder, but for too many young people today, this dream is beyond reach. In my constituency, house prices are now more than 10 times earnings. Despite many thousands of new homes being built already, in the past five years, Aylesbury has seen prices rise by 27%. The market therefore clearly calls for a greater supply of housing, but it is important that local development always reflects local circumstances and listens to local voices. I am grateful that Ministers did indeed hear the concerns of local people over the previously proposed algorithm, and I am confident that they will do so again as they move forward with the planning Bill.

The consultation that has already taken place contains some bold and praiseworthy ideas. I will certainly welcome proposals that could be used sensitively to redevelop and renew town centres such as Aylesbury, becoming places where people really do want to live, work, visit and invest. Carefully thought through densification and regeneration can undoubtedly help to reinvigorate towns and at the same time preserve our precious green belt. I am particularly pleased that the planning Bill will ensure that infrastructure is delivered at the same time as new houses, not years after. Anyone trying to drive through Aylesbury will agree that that is a long overdue change.

I have one small suggestion for my right hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues in the Department, which is to consider the issue of empty commercial buildings that are all but abandoned by absentee owners—often overseas companies sitting on the land for its potential capital growth over decades but with no interest in a sense of place or community now. Aylesbury, unfortunately, has a few of those structures. They spoil the streetscape and are an impediment to ambitious and imaginative plans for development. Those sites could be much better used. The buildings could be repurposed for hospitality, retail or housing, or they could be demolished to create further brownfield sites. I hope that the ministerial team will look into ways of enabling that to happen.

The people of Aylesbury are far from nimbys. We already expect some 16,000 houses to be built in the next 30 years, but those developments must be right for residents, both new and old. Aylesbury garden town can help to fulfil that as a project, because it is not about bricks and mortar; it is about creating communities.