Housing

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will have heard my hon. Friend’s first question. I have to admit that I do not know the answer to it, because the policy is so light on detail. It was written on the back of a fag packet during the Conservative party’s general election campaign.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Emma Reynolds]

I will not, because I am about to answer my hon. Friend’s second question.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the policy will

“reduce the availability of social housing in the most expensive areas, thereby creating clearer divisions between areas where richer and poorer households are located”.

I will now give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Jackson]

I am unclear about the premise of the hon. Lady’s argument. Is she ideologically opposed to the policy, or does she think that it will not work? If it is the latter, did she not advance a similar argument about the affordable rent model? She said then that no money would go back into the system to fund the building of new housing, but that has not been the case. Along with organisations providing other forms of tenure, housing associations have built more homes as a result of the affordable rent model, which was pioneered by the last Government.

[Emma Reynolds]

With respect, I remind the hon. Gentleman that what the last Government did to affordable rent was redefine it completely, and raise it to 80% of the market rent. In many of my, and his, hon. Friends’ constituencies, that level of rent is simply unaffordable for people on low incomes. Indeed, in some parts of our capital and other big cities, it is even unaffordable for people on middle incomes. I think that the hon. Gentleman needs to get a grip on reality.