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8.54 pm
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): It is an honour to be called to speak in the debate, not least because I was privileged to serve on the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs, whose 10th report on housing has been so much discussed and praised this evening. It is also an honour to servebehind the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who regrettably is not in her place but whose robust views on the subject were clearly laid out in the report, and whose robust views on most subjects go to great lengths to embarrass her own Government. I am always proud to serve behind her, and I am sure that she will be pleased to hear that.
I should tell the Minister for London and Construction that it was not I who described him in that disgraceful way in the Select Committee report. As I was the only Conservative Member serving on the Committee at that time, he must deduce that it was someone from his own side who came to that disgraceful conclusion. On that person's behalf, I apologise for it, although, if one listened to the Minister's speech this evening, one might gain some insight into why that conclusion was reached.
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall). I shall have a little to say about the north-west and the north-east of England later in my brief remarks. I know that several hon. Members want to take part in the debate, so I shall try to restrict myself to one specific point about my constituency and two or three general points.
With regard to my constituency, North Wiltshire is threatened by the ever-westward expansion of Swindon. For example, it has recently been decided that 5,000 houses are likely to be built in what is known as the front garden of Swindon, which is in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown). If that is allowed, it will be a touchstone of the Government's attitude to building. There will be an inexorable growth towards my villages of Lydiard Millicent, Purton and Wootton Bassett, which are terrified that Swindon will encroach upon them and engulf them.
The Secretary of State will no doubt read the report of this debate tomorrow. His attitude the growth of Swindon will be taken as a touchstone in our view of the entire matter when the Opposition--I fear that it will be the Opposition who call it--call the next debate, which will be the fourth that we have called on the subject since we came into opposition.
Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon):
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will offer some constructive comments about how we can move forward. Does he agree that one
Mr. Gray:
I agree with the hon. Lady. I know that, around Swindon, there are many brown-field sites. I hope that the Secretary of State's strengthening of the rural buffer zone that protects my constituency from Swindon may force developers into the centre of Swindon to develop precisely the kind of sites that the hon. Lady describes.
On a more general point, the Secretary of State seems to be like a rabbit. It may be hard to imagine him as a rabbit, frozen in the headlights of an on-coming Land Rover driven by the developers, but his inaction over the past 12 months suggests that. He simply does not know what to do about the 4.4 million households that we are told that the nation will need between now and 2016. I believe that the latest projections from civil servants may be as high as 5 million households, rather than 4.4 million, as we had all hoped.
As I speak from the Back Benches, and therefore speak with no authority of my party or anyone else, I shall suggest a few ideas to the Secretary of State for dealing with the problem of all those households.
Politicians of all parties go to great lengths to say how much they support the family, how strongly we believe in the family and how we must keep families together, although, in party political debates, we often argue that the Labour party seems less committed to families than we are. None the less, most politicians of most parties go to great lengths to support the nuclear family, and argue that, through taxation and other measures, we must keep the family together.
However, the vast bulk of those 4.4 million households are not nuclear families. We need more and more houses, not because the population is expanding, not because we are all having babies, but because more and more families are breaking up. Most of the 4.4 million homes needed will be for single-parent families. I hold nothing against single-parent families. Nevertheless, it is true that we are talking, not about a growth in the population, but about significant social changes in that population.
Perhaps the nation might like to consider the proposition that, if we restricted the availability of housing, that might encourage more families to stay together, or more youngsters to stay at home for a longer time, or more families to look after the elderly after they have finished living in their own houses.
Barbara Follett:
Is it not true that the growth in the number of households is caused by longevity? More people are living longer and they are living alone.
Mr. Gray:
That is true; longevity is one of many reasons. However, the growth in the number of single-parent families is a key factor--divorce is causing a rise in the number of households. Even if the hon. Lady is right, my point is that, in the old days, families tended to keep their old folk with them. Allowing an ever-aging population to live alone in large houses is not necessarily the best way of using our diminishing housing stock. We should not build on green-field sites in order to leave
The second fundamental issue involves a self-fulfilling prophecy. In areas such as North Wiltshire or Swindon, successful businesses create employment and attract many people to the locality. The businesses then expand--for example, Honda recently announced the creation of an extra 5,000 jobs in Swindon--and someone says, "Gosh, look at all those jobs; we must have more houses to accommodate the employees". Consequently, more businesses locate to the area.
In the meantime, there are 800,000 empty houses in Britain. Some 100,000 of them are in the public sector--they are the responsibility of local authorities, housing associations and other public sector bodies. We are not using 100,000 public sector houses. If asked why that is so, most people would say that it is because the houses are not in the right places. That is correct: those empty houses are not in Swindon. The people who fill the 5,000 jobs with Honda will not live in any of those 800,000 houses because we have no empties in North Wiltshire. I think I am correct in saying--the hon. Member for South Swindon will correct me if I am not--that there are few empties in Swindon. Those empty houses are in the north-east and the north-west--as the hon. Member for West Lancashire pointed out.
Mr. Drew:
The hon. Gentleman is talking about the need for an effective regional policy. When he was adviser to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), what suggestions did he make with regard to such a policy?
Mr. Gray:
The hon. Gentleman may dress it up as effective regional policy, but my point has nothing to do with a top-down regional policy or RDAs saying, "Here is what you guys down there must do." I am talking about restricting the availability of housing in areas such as mine. That will force businesses to locate in the north-east and the north-west of England and people will go to live in those areas and occupy the empty houses. That is a straightforward market-driven approach to solving the problem--it has nothing to do with RDAs, regional policies and all of those things that the Labour party loves.
It is an economic self-fulfilling prophecy that, because the south-west and south-east of England are prosperous, they must be allowed to become even more prosperous and we must allow more and more people to live in those areas. We tell ourselves that, as a nation, we have a duty to provide houses for people where they want them and at prices that they can afford. I suggest that, if we chose to restrict the availability of housing in the south-east and the south-west--as well as in other popular areas--businesses would perhaps locate to where housing is available; where there are empties and brown-field sites.
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge):
In Cambridge, an over-provision of jobs and an under-provision of homes leads to the development of unsustainable policies. People live outside my constituency and drive to work because public transport is poor. That causes huge traffic congestion and air pollution in the city, and that is much less attractive than having more homes that we need in the city.
Mr. Gray:
The hon. Lady is absolutely right: that is a very good point. It reminds me that the Minister failed to
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