Autumn Statement

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, the many measures in it and, in particular, the reaffirmation of his commitment to ensuring that we overcome Labour’s debt storm. Many hard-working families in my constituency who aspire to buy their own homes will be pleased with today’s measures to ease the housing market. Will he confirm how many people nationally he expects the mortgage indemnity scheme to help, when it might start and how many jobs it is likely to create?

[Mr Osborne]

From memory, I think it is going to help 100,000 people, and that is a real boost. With the other housing measures we are taking, including the support for stalled sites—the £400 million package we are providing—we hope that that is going to create several hundred thousand jobs in the construction industry over the period going forward. The 50% right-to-buy discount we are introducing revives one of the most effective social policies of the past few decades—one that the Labour leader recently had to admit had worked and that the Labour party was wrong to oppose. A crucial additional element is that we are going to use the money to build social housing, which is why I think it is a policy appropriate to the modern age.