Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

As I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), it is very important that these proposals come from the bottom up, and that requires local agreement. Discussions are taking place locally in the south of England, as they are in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, as to what is the right geography of a proposed deal. It is very important that these things are determined locally, rather than by my getting a pen and drawing lines on a map. I hope the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) will use his good influence to bring people together, so that we can advance what should be a very important and attractive deal.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T7. Empty homes are a blight on our local communities, with some becoming derelict and dangerous, meaning that not only are local people deprived of somewhere to live, but entire areas can appear run down or unkempt. What is the Minister’s assessment of the number of empty homes and what is his Department doing to improve the situation?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and he has made the case to me before outside the Chamber about ensuring that we make the best use of the housing stock we have. I am pleased that under our Government we have seen a drop to the lowest level on record—a third down on the peak—and that in Thurrock the number of empty homes has dropped from 319 homes to 214. But we need to keep going, which is why our changes on the powers over council tax and the new homes bonus give a real incentive to local authorities to make sure we get these empty homes back into use. We should keep pushing.