Tony Lloyd
Main Page: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
The Minister for Housing (Grant Shapps)
It is our intention that areas that promote business within their communities should benefit in some way from doing so. The manifesto and coalition agreement make it clear that that is our intention.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)
T6. Because this Government have deliberately chosen to cut the budget for housing, and that will have an inevitable effect on jobs and training in construction, does the Housing Minister now regret his words in opposition that it would be ridiculous and counter-productive to insist on apprenticeship training in publicly funded housing schemes?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman knows about the huge deficit—£780 million was promised from other budgets but never existed—and building homes with imaginary money is not possible, so compromises need to be made. We have said that £170 million will go to support 4,000 homes—as the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) said—and 3,500 jobs.