John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)
Mr Speaker
We now come to the Opposition day motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. To move the motion, I call the shadow Minister for Housing, Emma Reynolds.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that the UK faces an urgent and growing housing crisis; believes that the Government should bring forward a comprehensive plan to tackle the housing crisis which sets out concrete steps to build more homes, including badly-needed affordable homes, boost home ownership, improve the private rented sector and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping; and regrets that over the past five years home completions have been at their lowest level in peacetime since the 1920s, that home ownership has fallen to a thirty-year low with a record number of young people living with their parents into their twenties and thirties, that there are 1.4 million families on the waiting list for a social home and that since 2010 homelessness has risen by 31 per cent and rough sleeping by 55 per cent.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have had a promotion since the last time we saw each other. I am now the shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, although we are talking about housing today.
Mr Speaker
Housing being but one of the hon. Lady’s preoccupations. We welcome her preferment and congratulate her on it.
Emma Reynolds
And I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on your re-election. I am delighted that you are in the Chair.
The official Opposition are deeply concerned about the urgent and growing housing crisis, which is why we have chosen it for our first Opposition day debate. Housing has rightly risen up the political agenda in recent months and years, and many of our constituents will say that it is not before time. Our motion calls on the Government to bring forward a comprehensive plan to tackle the housing crisis, which should focus on: building more homes, including badly needed affordable homes; boosting home ownership, allowing people to fulfil their aspirations to buy their own home; improving private renting for the 11 million people now renting from a private landlord; and reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. Let us be clear that the big overarching problem is one of massive under-supply of new homes.
In England, we are building only half the number of homes we need to keep up with demand. It is true that under successive Governments of different political colours there simply have not been enough homes built for decades. It is also the case, however, that in the past five years house building has fallen to its lowest level in peacetime since the 1920s. The Prime Minister likes to maintain that the Conservative party is the party of homeownership, but the truth and the facts fly in the face of his rhetoric. Homeownership has fallen to a 30-year low. It is, as it happens, at its lowest since the last time there was a majority Tory Government.