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Affordable Housing

Liberal Democrat Members welcome the rise in public and political awareness of the housing issue, which is clearly a major policy concern. We welcome the debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) and her Committee on producing a thoughtful, thorough and balanced report that is challenging and provocative in places. Its measured language sometimes disguises the fact that it points out that things are essentially going from bad to worse, and that in many respects Government policy is not yet fit for purpose—and, indeed, that the Government are perhaps not even properly engaged on the right issues. The report, and other reports that have come to our attention, suggest that we have a problem with housing. There is not enough of it; it is not of the right type, in the right place or at the right price; and, in many ways, it is not sustainable economically, socially or environmentally. Clearly, putting all that right is not a simple job, and it cannot all be done by the Government or the House, however hard we try. There are, however, some clear messages in the Select Committee’s report, and I hope that when the Government respond to the debate, they will pick up on those messages, as well as some of the report’s more refined points. As well as the Select Committee report, there has been the Barker review, a Shelter report, and a Town and Country Planning Association report—a range of documents, all of which essentially make the same key points. The first of those points is the deficiency in the provision of social housing in England. Some 600,000 social housing units have been sold through the right-to-buy mechanism, and although expanding owner-occupation is, of course, a good thing, it means that there has been a significant reduction in the social housing stock. In addition, since Labour came to power in 1997, the waiting list for social housing has gone up from 1 million to 1.5 million families. Some 525,000 families have been added to the waiting list for social housing at a time when 600,000 social houses and housing units have been lost in the sector. We know from reports, including some paragraphs of the Select Committee report, that 94,000 families are homeless or in temporary accommodation; another 500,000 are in overcrowded accommodation, especially in the south-east and London. However, every part of the country is affected, including my constituency in Greater Manchester. Some £14 billion has been stripped from the social housing budget as a result of right-to-buy sales. That money could have built a year’s supply of housing, so the Liberal Democrats strongly endorse the construction of more social housing, as recommended by the Select Committee and by other reports, including the Barker report. It is essential that we tackle that problem.