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Affordable Housing (Birmingham)

3. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): If he will make a statement on the availability of affordable housing in Birmingham. [56644]

The Minister for Housing and Planning (Yvette Cooper): The Housing Corporation has provided some £80 million for new social housing over this two-year period, which is a substantial increase for Birmingham compared with previous years and, in addition, a growing proportion of new affordable homes has come from section 106 agreements. We will announce the next allocations from the Housing Corporation shortly.

Lynne Jones: My hon. Friend will be aware that three quarters of council lettings are to homeless people, compared with a third in 1997. Likewise, housing association tenancies are overwhelmed by homeless and clearance cases, leaving little availability for others in housing distress on waiting lists. However, thousands more homes are due to be demolished because of a lack of money to bring them up to a decent standard. The Government made £650 million available for stock transfer—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I encourage the hon. Lady to formulate a question out of all this?

Lynne Jones: What does my hon. Friend say to those tenants who ask why that money cannot be made available to invest in council housing and building new homes?

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right to say that we have made money available for Birmingham. We have increased the resources available directly to Birmingham and we have also made options available for it to increase its housing to the decent homes standard. I know that the recent independent report by Anne Power on the approach taken by Birmingham city council was critical, and I am also concerned that the council's approach to pushing up the cost of land for housing associations also raises questions about the ability to deliver new social housing. We are investigating that.
 
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John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): Does the Minister not agree that, if the council were allowed to spend more than 25 per cent. of the right-to-buy proceeds on building new affordable properties, that could have a serious effect on reducing homelessness?

Yvette Cooper: As I have said, we have doubled the resources going into new social housing since 1997, and we are increasing new social house building by 50 per cent. over the next few years. We are raising additional resources from a range of different routes to invest in social housing, but the hon. Gentleman should raise with Birmingham city council the need for it to work with housing associations to increase support for new social housing, because we will only get the additional social housing that we need if the council works with housing associations, rather than working against them.

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): My hon. Friend mentioned the independent commission of inquiry into council housing in Birmingham, chaired by Professor Anne Power. Is she aware of the commission's latest report, which emphasises not only that, if Birmingham is to tackle its housing agenda, it needs to develop a much more vibrant, community-based housing approach, but that, crucially, since the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives took over the council, the neighbourhood agenda is now slipping

"a long way down the Council's list of priorities and there are many unresolved funding and staffing problems over devolution, regeneration, neighbourhood renewal, neighbourhood wardens and other local initiatives"?

Does she agree that if Birmingham is to tackle its housing agenda, the council must learn to let go?

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right. In fact, there should be strong support for community-led programmes to devolve much of the decision making to local neighbourhoods, as he and the Anne Power report have advocated, and Opposition Members should ask some questions of Birmingham city council.

Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con): Great cities, such as Birmingham, have a regenerated heart—the magnificent Bullring, with its café culture and its luxury apartments—but, sadly, most first-time buyers simply cannot afford to live there. In the face of the decline in the number of first-time buyers in this country—from 500,000 in 1997, down to 320,000 last year—the Government are proposing to help just 100,000 of them with shared equity in the lifetime of this Parliament. Why such poverty of ambition?

Yvette Cooper: I find the hon. Lady's question astonishing. We are proposing very strong and ambitious programmes to build more houses, which this country needs. In fact, 190,000 new households are being created each year, and we are building only about 160,000 new homes. We need to build more new homes, including in the west midlands, but she is opposing new development in her constituency and arguing that it should not take place there but elsewhere. If Opposition Members keep opposing new homes in their constituencies, we will never get the new homes that first-time buyers and the next generation need. That is the challenge to improving affordability.
 
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Contingency Planning

4. Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con): What discussions he has had with the Home Office on improvements and alterations to resilience structures following Exercise Osiris 2 in September 2003. [56645]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Jim Fitzpatrick): Exercise Osiris 2 allowed London's emergency and health services to practise their response to a chemical attack on the tube. Home Office and other Ministers were closely involved in the subsequent analysis of lessons, which were incorporated into our emergency planning programme and contributed significantly, with other action and exercises, to building the quality of preparedness that we saw demonstrated in London on 7 July last year.

Patrick Mercer: May I thank the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister for making briefings available to me? During Exercise Osiris, it was made clear that there would be further exercises, involving not just the emergency services, but the public. Since then, the tube has been attacked successfully, there has been a failed attack on the tube and I believe that there has been at least one foiled attack on the tube, yet there have been no further exercises on that scale, involving the public. Why?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I assure the hon. Gentleman that in the first instance lessons from Osiris 2 have been learned on procuring new equipment, amending procedures and introducing new techniques. A number of major exercises have taken place subsequently, not just in London, but in Newcastle and Birmingham, and we had Operation Atlantic Blue in conjunction with the US and Canada in January this year. Three major counter-terrorism exercises are held in the UK every year, as well as smaller regional exercises and table-top exercises. There is an ongoing examination of our contingency planning and preparedness. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman received a briefing earlier this week. We will be happy to give him more in the future to ensure that he is kept up to speed.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): One of the best groups at extracting people from underground is the Mines Rescue Service, based in the Rhondda, yet it was not involved in discussions about Osiris, and nor were its services requested following 7 July. May I urge my hon. Friend to consider how the Mines Rescue Service could be used in such events?

Jim Fitzpatrick: I hear exactly what my hon. Friend says and his suggestion, which will be taken on board by officials in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The experience and expertise of the Mines Rescue Service staff can be put to good use. We have already amended our techniques on rescuing people from deep areas and, as a result, the 7/7 exercise was a success. I am sure that we will be in touch with the Mines Rescue Service in due course.
 
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Regional Government

5. Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con): What powers and responsibilities the Government have transferred to regional assemblies since 2004. [56646]

The Minister of Communities and Local Government (Mr. David Miliband): The eight regional assemblies outside London were each formally designated as the regional planning body in their region under the provisions of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. We have accepted the recommendation of the Barker review on housing supply that regional housing boards be merged with them.

Philip Davies: I thank the Minister for that reply. Clearly, the Government have learned nothing from the referendum in the north-east on regional assemblies. The Yorkshire and Humber assembly has decided that Bradford district needs 30,000 houses built over the next 10 to 15 years. Why should an unelected, unaccountable and unwanted body make such a decision for our area? Should not it be left to the local council to decide such things?

Mr. Miliband: What I should do is commend to the hon. Gentleman the words of the Conservative leader of the East of England regional assembly who says that regional assemblies are essential for "effective regional planning", the provision of a democratic mandate in the regions and

"effective scrutiny of other bodies".

Some 187 Conservative councillors are on those regional assemblies. The hon. Gentleman should be saying that they are doing a good job.

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