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Keith Hill: With respect, I am more inclined to trust definitions from local authorities—the figures that I gave were from local authorities—than from Shelter. More to the point, however, the hon. Lady attempted in her speech to create an intellectual construct to defend nimbyism. In the lead-up to the next general election, her party is mounting a defence of nimbyism. She made a rather shallow effort at doing so herself, but she will not get away with it, as she made no commitment to increase the number of homes to deal with the problem of homelessness.
Jim Knight (South Dorset) (Lab): My right hon. Friend will be aware of the lack of affordable housing in Dorset and across the south-west. Has he received any representations or constructive suggestions from the Opposition about tackling that problem? All I hear is criticism—I do not hear anything constructive at all.
Keith Hill: My hon. Friend is right. If I ever get to my peroration, I intend to make that point myself. I have scanned the Conservatives' housing proposals, but there is only one to deal with such problems—it would extend the right to buy to housing associations. The Conservatives make the fascinating proposition that for every two housing association properties that are sold, one new housing association home will be built. The party appears to be concerned about homelessness, to which social housing is the obvious solution. I stand to be corrected, but its proposals are not a recipe for expanding the provision of such housing.
In the past six weeks, the Government have announced a new £690 million programme for housing essential key workers; a new scheme to turn surplus national health service and Ministry of Defence land into 15,000 new homes; a £150 million programme to turn derelict sites into urgently needed new homes for London; more investment to tackle low demand in South Yorkshire, Oldham, Rochdale and east Lancashire; nearly £500 million for existing arm's-length housing organisations to help improve the lives of thousands of tenants; and more than £3 billion for the
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Housing Corporation to increase the supply of affordable homes. Again, we need no lessons from the Opposition about housing.
Under the last Tory Government, rough sleeping began to be regarded as an unavoidable reality. This Government were not prepared to accept that, and we have reduced rough sleeping to well below two thirds of 1998 levels. The number of rough sleepers in 2004 is the lowest ever recorded. Who can forget—I know that Labour Members cannot—that in 1992, 1.2 million households suffered from negative equity, and that between 1990 and 1997 nearly 0.5 million homes were repossessed? Mortgages averaged 11 per cent., hitting a peak of 17 per cent. That was the Tory housing policy. But mortgage rates are now at their lowest level since the 1950s, following an unprecedented period of low and stable interest rates from which home owners throughout the UK have benefited, enabling them to plan for the future with confidence.
We have heard that the Government apparently have a visceral resistance to greater home ownership, but there are now more home owners than ever before. As Kate Barker pointed out in her recent report, since 1997, 1 million more people now own their own homes. At just over 15 million, England has the largest number of home owners in recorded history, but I accept that we need to do better. We need to build more homes and expand the supply of affordable housing. In contrast to the Tory period of year-on-year cuts in investment, since 1997 we have doubled investment in council housing and new affordable homes. We have unlocked £8.5 billion of private investment through stock transfers to housing associations, and we have invested over £1 billion in key worker housing—three times the previous annual rate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) pointed out, we have at the same time created a £500 million fund to tackle market renewal in areas of low demand for housing. In areas of high demand, we are implementing a £600 million investment programme to create the social and physical infrastructure necessary for housing growth.
Keith Hill: There is a bottomless pit of demand for my attention, and hon. Members will know that I am always conscious of the need for Front Benchers to keep it short in these brief debates when many other colleagues wish to speak. I cannot resist giving way to my official opposite number, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), but afterwards I must exercise self-restraint.
Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): The Minister is, as ever, generous, and I am grateful to him for giving way. He talked about the Barker review and the need to build more houses. One of Kate Barker's recommendations is for a development land tax. Does he support that?
Keith Hill:
The hon. Gentleman refers to the planning gain supplement. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that the Government are considering the proposal and that we expect to make a response in 2005.
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Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD): Will the Minister give way?
Since 1997, as I have said, we have doubled the funding for social housing and supported the creation of 230,000 new affordable homes. We have increased the number of housing association homes from 22,000 a year in 2001 to 29,000 in 2005, but we are determined to do better, and by 2006, the extra investment in affordable homes will increase the number of new housing association homes to over 34,000 a year—a 50 per cent. increase in five years. More than 10,000 key workers in our front-line public services, including health, education and the police, have been helped into home ownership through our starter home initiative. Last month, we announced the new £690 million key worker living scheme, which will help a further 16,500 key worker households into new homes in high demand areas by 2006.
Keith Hill: I cannot resist giving way to my highly knowledgeable colleague.
Ms Buck: There has been a glaring omission from my right hon. Friend's speech, which I feel it necessary to correct. He has made no mention of that embodiment of Conservative housing policy demonstrated by Dame Shirley Porter and Westminster city council Conservative members. On the subject of housing investment, will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Labour councillors past and present who have pursued Dame Shirley and her colleagues for 15 years, and who last week saw their pressure bear fruit when Dame Shirley agreed to repay £12.3 million, the balance of which will be invested in new housing opportunities in Westminster, with no thanks whatever to the Conservative party?
Keith Hill: I thought I would save that morsel for my hon. Friend. I am delighted to congratulate those Labour councillors. I also congratulate her and other hon. Members on their pursuit of justice in the matter.
Keith Hill: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross), then to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard), and I might give way again as I approach the end of my observations.
Richard Younger-Ross
: I thank the Minister kindly for giving way. He spoke about the right to buy and home ownership, but he seems to be falling into the same trap as the Conservatives did in the 1980s, by putting the right to own a property above all else. Does he agree that one of the reasons why people seek to buy property is as an investment, rather than as a home as we would
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expect? It is their seeking an investment that leads to house price inflation, which is the reason for the lack of affordability of homes. Ought he not to be tackling that?
Keith Hill: As the hon. Gentleman went on, I began to regret giving way to him. In so far as I understand his point—
Keith Hill: I will not allow the hon. Gentleman to clarify further—heaven forfend. As I understand it, he was making a point about people's desire to use property for investment purposes. That is not something that the Government wish to challenge, but we are taking firm action through the Housing Bill to put a stop to the scandal of the commercial exploitation of the right to buy, which is wreaking such havoc not only in some of our major urban areas, but quite widely throughout the country.
Mr. Kerry Pollard (St. Albans) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend do all he can to sort out the West of Stevenage development, where several thousand houses were due to be built many years ago? Not one house has been built, and that is causing blight across the whole of Hertfordshire. My constituency, St. Albans, has been jam-packed because of the need for housing. That has been going on for a long time because of the intransigence of Tory-controlled Hertfordshire county council.
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