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Mr. Betts: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. He is presumably not saying that the Conservative party is against any development at all, so can he explain what appropriate development is and what scale of development the Conservatives would support in the south-east?

Mr. Hayes: That would require a speech of considerably more than 15 minutes, but if the hon. Gentleman had been listening to me carefully he would have heard me say that development is best when it is incremental, when it is in character and in keeping with existing settlement, when it respects the environment and landscape and when it is appropriate to the needs of a mixed, balanced and self-sustaining community. Ultimately, it will be for those in each community to decide what is right for them and their locality, but those are the points of reference that I would offer them, and they would not be very far from the hon. Gentleman's considerations about such things, because he is a studious contributor to housing debates.
 
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Let me turn to affordability. We must assume, given the absence of any Government statement to the contrary, that Kate Barker's assumptions are the Government's assumptions. Kate Barker says that the real problem of affordability is one of supply. She assumes that a supply-side solution can be devised and implemented to deal with the problem of escalating house prices. Let me say, as I have said before, that house prices are driven up and stay up because of a variety of demand-side factors: low interest rates, the unattractiveness of alternative investment vehicles, the amount of borrowing secured by housing equity and the disproportionate allure of home ownership in British culture.

Those are the things that have driven up and kept up house prices, and the idea that we can deal with house price inflation or even house price volatility by supply-side changes—given that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden said, only 1 per cent. of housing is new build and only 10 per cent. of transactions apply to those houses—is at best extraordinarily ambitious and, at worst, hopelessly naive. The Minister knows very well that to effect those changes would take an enormous amount of time—the land must be found, local people must back the plans, the houses must be built and then investment must be put into all the associated infrastructure. That is neither sustainable, nor a practical solution to house price inflation and volatility.

The other side of the Barker report—the Minister did not mention this in his remarks today—is that, to effect such change, Government would have to ride roughshod over local communities. Power would need to be transferred to the regions, which would impose those building targets on local people, who would have almost no say in where the houses were built and what they looked like. That is a move from predict and provide to dictate and provide, and the Minister was very cautious about not mentioning that because he knows that it is indefensible.

When we make those charges, the Secretary of State—supported by the Ministers present today, who are good people, but misguided ones—usually crows about the green belt, but as I described in a question to the right hon. Gentleman just a few days ago, the truth is that Government's claims about the green belt do not bear close examination. The Library tells us that the Government are "imprecise and evasive", when asked questions about where the green belt has and has not been developed.

When we study where the green belt has been expanded, we find that that has not happened in the areas where there is maximum pressure for development. Some 94 per cent. of the development of the green belt has occurred in a handful of areas in the north of England. The green belt was designed as a tight belt of land to avoid urban sprawl, yet none of the areas where urban sprawl is a real risk is benefiting from the Government's new interest in the green belt. Mr. Prescott's belt is elastic. It extends ever further into the countryside and ever further away from the areas that it is supposed to protect. So perhaps the Minister and the Secretary of State, before they make any more claims about the green belt, would be better served by looking closely at their record and giving more precise and less evasive answers to the very proper questions posed to them by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
 
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We have been chided about our policies, and I want to say something about them in a moment. We had hoped to hear something from the Minister about empty homes; the development land tax; the impact of the Government's ideas on local democracy; and affordability targets. We had hoped to hear something about those things in the Minister's opening speech; perhaps we will hear something in the closing speech. All we have heard, as a defence of the Government's housing policy, is an attack on us.

There is a determination to implement a decent home standard that, although laudable, is by no means enough in terms of tackling overcrowding, warm homes and accessibility for disabled people—all issues that the Conservatives, together with some of the minor parties, have highlighted in Committee and elsewhere. So the Government should not tell me that we have not taken a stand on such things, for if they study the evidence, they will find that we have done so.

We have heard a lot about the communities plan, of which the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government Committee said:

"Building more homes is not a panacea and the impact of such a housing programme on the environment could be unsustainable . . . The Government's objective to bring down house prices is unlikely to be achieved . . . The Committee is not convinced that the enlarged house-building programme can be accommodated in the South East without seriously affecting the quality of the environment."

The Conservatives are going to look at a more fluid system which, by extending transferable discounts, will allow people to move more easily from social housing to market housing. We are going to look afresh at shared equity as a means of dealing with affordability, and will put together an empty homes strategy that brings into use some of the 700,000-plus empty homes, on which the Government have consulted endlessly but about which they have done nothing. We are going to look at bringing into use some of the ex-industrial and commercial premises, redesignated for housing purposes, and at effecting a real green belt that protects our towns and cities from urban sprawl.

The challenge before us is to beautify our landscape, improve our towns and cities, and serve the future in stone and brick or merely propitiate the present with cheap durables, utility and ubiquity. Some will rise magnificently to that challenge, but many will not. Nothing in the words or character of the Government gives me confidence that they will rise above their lamentable record. However, there is still an opportunity for them to do so. Let them come to the Dispatch Box in the few minutes available and give us an honest appraisal of how they intend to improve things in the interests of all the people of this country.

3.46 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper): We have had an interesting debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) gave a powerful description of cuts in affordable housing investment in the 1980s and '90s, and raised the important issue of quality and design. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) made a thoughtful response to the Barker review, which we have partly debated before. He
 
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made important individual points, but they did not add up to the conclusion that he drew, a subject to which I shall return later. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) spoke about empty homes, on which we are doing a lot of work, and overcrowding, which was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King). I pay tribute to the work that she and other Labour Members have done on the issue. We are making amendments on overcrowding to the Housing Bill, and we will shortly consult on the issue in more detail.

The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) talked about the quality of housing in Wales which, he will know, is a devolved matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright) pointed out the importance of mixed tenure communities, and called for a midlands way. The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) complained about the sustainable communities plan, but he knows that there is considerable consultation at both regional and local levels on the proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) made sensible points about supply and demand in the housing market.

The Opposition are still burying their heads in the sand about the need for new houses, and there were contradictions in the arguments that their spokespeople made, both in the motion and in their speeches. They want to argue that there is not a problem with housing supply, yet they complain that key workers cannot afford to buy a house. They do not want more houses to be built in their constituencies, yet they complain that first-time buyers cannot afford to buy a home in the towns and villages where they grew up. They say that we need more affordable housing, yet they want to cut the social housing budget and stock. They cannot have it both ways.

I welcome the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) to her post. She said that she cares passionately about these issues, and I believe that she does. However, she has done nothing to improve the internal logic and consistency of the Conservatives' position.

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