---

Affordable Housing

I am a member of the Select Committee that produced the report, although I was not a member of the Committee for the duration of the inquiry. I, for one, do not agree with all the report’s findings, but I hope that it has been a helpful contribution to what is becoming a more extensive and pressing debate. I am also vice-chairman of the all-party arm’s length management organisations group, and I represent a constituency in which about a third of housing stock is social housing, which is well above the national average but round about the London average. My position is to support in general more house building. It seems that some of that building will inevitably have to be on greenfield land, which I support somewhat reluctantly, although it is not the same as supporting construction on green belt land, about which I have severe reservations, as I do about the Government’s approach announced earlier this week. My constituency suffers badly from the phenomenon of lack of affordability of private housing. The Evening Standard on 4 December included an article entitled, ““Has it ever been harder to buy a house in London?”” The picture that accompanied the article is of Wingate road in Hammersmith W6. According to the caption, a four-bedroomed house with garden, with an asking price of £750,000, was sold for £866,000 within a week. Affordability is a very large issue in my constituency. In central London, the average home price, as distinct from house price, is about to break through the £500,000 barrier. I also want to reflect on another phenomenon that is getting coverage and interest at the moment: flight from London. That is a growing problem, and a report in the Evening Standard today says that about 250,00 people per annum are leaving London. My constituency has one of the highest population turnover rates in Britain of 20 to 25 per cent. each year. It is also now the second largest constituency in Britain in terms of population, after the Isle of Wight. Therefore, a lot of people are moving out, but even more are moving in. My constituency is also the second youngest in Britain after Battersea, and is among the top 10 for the location of young professionals. I want to address many of my comments to the problems that face young professionals and young families in getting on the housing ladder, including the private rented sector, in London and the south-east.