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Affordable Housing

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He and I had numerous such conversations over many years at Hammersmith and Fulham council. May I say that his adoption as the Labour party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith has cross-party support, and I wish him all the best in his attempts to represent roads such as Wingate road. I am certainly not addressing other issues to the exclusion of social housing. I merely wanted to emphasise some private sector housing issues in London. I am fairly sure that he will speak later about many of the issues facing the social housing sector, which I will certainly not ignore. We need more social housing for rent, but that cannot be the only solution. The Government have a terrible record, especially in London, on social housing completions and lettings. Affordable housing completions are down from 45,000 in 2000-01 to 32,000 last year. Since 1997, new social lettings in London have almost halved under Labour. The problem is very serious. The Labour party, however, is pretty much proposing that social housing for rent is the only solution to this country’s housing affordability crisis. In that regard, I must diverge from the opinions expressed by Labour Members.