Sheila Gilmore
Main Page: Sheila Gilmore (Labour - Edinburgh East)
Emma Reynolds
When I was last in Crawley I saw the white elephant of the free school there, which was refurbished and then was open for just two years. Apparently, millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was spent on it, and for what good?
We learnt last week that the Minister’s own officials have recently forecast that house building will fall, not rise, this year, but the Minister himself seems to be in two minds about whether forecasts exist. In a written answer, he told my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) that no such forecasts exist, before going on to publish his own forecast in that answer—albeit a partial one—claiming that he expected private house building to rise, with no mention of affordable homes. I am curious as to whether his Department publishes forecasts or not. Does the Minister believe they exist? The “Newsnight” leaked document seemed to suggest that they do.
In the same written answer, the Minister acknowledged that the Government are worried about presiding over a “hiatus” in affordable home building, which is probably a neat and euphemistic way of describing the Government’s record. Perhaps he could have been more direct—levels of affordable housing are set to fall off a cliff, and it is an open secret that housing associations are reluctant to bid for the Government’s affordable homes programme. No wonder Ministers are worried.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
When the Work and Pensions Committee visited Bedfordshire in connection with its work on housing benefit, housing associations told us that in order to get grants to build so-called affordable housing—which will be at 80% of market rent—they were required to place some of their existing stock into that category as it became available for rent. This housing is not truly affordable, so what effect will that have on the housing benefit budget in due course?
Emma Reynolds
My hon. Friend makes a significant point that I was about to come to. I am sure the Minister will talk about the number of affordable homes that the Government are delivering, but 40% of those were commissioned by the previous Labour Government. Furthermore, “affordable” in the Government’s terms is 80% of market rent. That is clearly not affordable for many families up and down the country—indeed, the National Audit Office has estimated that housing benefit will end up costing the taxpayer £1.4 billion because of the short-sightedness of this Government.
Kris Hopkins
It is clear that the hon. Lady’s party does not care about the economy of this country. It is quite happy to add to the deficit that was created by the last Administration. This Government have taken opportunities to raise the housing revenue account cap by some £300 million, and we look forward to seeing those houses being built.
More council houses have been built in the last four years, under this Government, than were built in the previous 13 years. As a result of the right to buy, some 19,000 hard-working individuals and their families have secured their own homes. That rejuvenated scheme has delivered some 10,000 more homes than was predicted, and we have promised to provide a replacement for every house that is sold. So far, some 3,000 new council houses have been built with right-to-buy receipts.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Will the Minister explain why housing associations are being required not only to let newly built homes at 80% of market rent, but to turn over part of our existing stock as it becomes vacant and let it at that level of rent in order to obtain a building grant at all?
Kris Hopkins
What is of key importance is for local authorities and housing associations to understand their stock, and to redesign, restructure and, where necessary, rebuild it to reflect local demand. [Interruption.] That is the answer.
So far, receipts from right-to-buy sales have ensured that some £420 million is available for the building of houses. We want councils to build them more quickly, and we are pushing them to do so, but I think that the Government should be extremely proud of the fact that 3,000 new homes have already been delivered as a result of the extra growth that generated those 10,000 sales.
In the Budget, the Chancellor announced that £300 million in HRA funding would be provided so that more council houses could be built. The prospectus has gone out, and we have received some responses. We will keep pushing councils to deliver those houses. Whatever the tenure, whether we are talking about private, affordable or social housing, this Government want to support the housing industry that is delivering it.
One of the tragedies that came out of the 2008 housing crash and the resulting recession, the deepest since the 1920s, was the loss of jobs. Some 250,000 people—a quarter of a million—lost their livelihoods: their wage packets disappeared. Many thousands of small and medium-sized building and construction firms were lost as a consequence of the dying days of the last Labour Administration, and the loss of that capacity—a direct result of the crash—is still being felt today. That is why the Government want to attract more young apprentices to the sector to secure the future of the housing and construction industry. Thousands of the 1.8 million apprentices whom the Government have supported so far—some 14,000 of them in the building and construction industry alone—are now the plumbers, chippies and brickies who are required to build the houses.
We have put together a builders fund worth a quarter of a billion pounds to support those small and medium-sized businesses, and we are ensuring that they can gain access to it so that they can build on smaller sites. A bidding process is about to end, and we look forward to making announcements in the future. We need to increase capacity, and to do that we need skills—the skills that were lost.