John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Lady should not believe too much of what she reads on these matters—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister, as we always expect him to, is behaving like a gentleman, but the hon. Gentleman must be heard.
Andrew Stunell
The fact of the matter is that the social and affordable housing programme is meeting an urgent need and we are pressing ahead with it vigorously. The issue that the hon. Lady raises must be seen in the context of the financial and housing situation we inherited from the previous Government.
Mr Speaker
Lewisham, Deptford is some considerable distance from the north of England, to which nevertheless the observations of the right hon. Lady will certainly relate.
Dame Joan Ruddock
I hope to be in order, Mr Speaker, by pointing out that despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) said about the north of England, Lewisham has the fourth highest rate of repossessions in England. There are 17,000 homeless people on our housing waiting list. What advice would the Minister give to those of my constituents given the misery that they are facing through losing their homes—their most precious possession?
Mr Speaker
I am a tolerant and obliging fellow and I wanted to hear the evidence, but there is nothing to which the Minister should respond on the Floor of the House, because the question relates to the north of England and he did not expand it. However, the right hon. Lady’s observations are on the record.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman says that she is a dame, but even dames must play by the rules, and that is not disputed.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
14. What his most recent estimate is of the number of homes to be built in the south-east in the next five years and of the proportion of such homes that will be let at affordable rents.
Fiona Mactaggart
I am rather confused by that answer, because the Minister has just said that he does not forecast numbers of new homes but in an earlier answer he forecast 170,000 new homes. I do not know when a forecast is not a forecast. May I tell him what the housing situation is like on the ground, because his responses so far have not revealed it properly? In Slough, 43 affordable new homes have been started, down from 103. I have had more inquiries about housing this year than in any year since I was elected in 1997. We have nearly 300 people whose homes have been repossessed. [Interruption.] If I could come to the question—
Mr Speaker
Order. I think that the hon. Lady wants to know what the Minister is going to do about the situation.
Fiona Mactaggart
May I specifically ask the Minister what he can offer to people in a situation where there are more people on the housing waiting list in Slough than there are affordable homes?
Mr Speaker
Order. There is no breach of order. [Interruption.] Order. I must say to the hon. Lady that the Minister is not out of order. I do not think she should take offence, as the Minister did not mean to be offensive in any way; he was being light-hearted and jocular, as we all seek to be.
Andrew Stunell
If it assists in our proceedings, I am happy to withdraw the comment.
I fully acknowledge that we need more social and affordable homes. That is why we have a programme that is adding to the stock of social and affordable homes. I say to the hon. Lady that Slough will end up with more social and affordable homes in 2015 than there were in 2010, unlike the period in which Labour ran this country and its housing policy.
Grant Shapps
It is absolutely the case that rents are not well served by caps at all, and when in place they enhanced neither rental levels nor the quality of properties. For example, the housing market shrank to 8% with rent caps. There is no advantage to introducing rent caps. Without them, the market has expanded again to 16%, serving people in London and elsewhere far better.
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
Are the Government’s excellent proposals for troubled families being embraced by local authorities throughout the country?