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Affordable Housing

I must try to make progress, given the time constraints that we face. As well as discussing social housing, it is appropriate to acknowledge that the Government have put a great deal of emphasis on low-cost home ownership schemes. We heard an entertaining exchange between the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush (Mr. Slaughter) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham about low-cost home ownership and some of the strikingly high-cost schemes that sail under that banner. The Government’s record on low-cost home ownership schemes is disappointing. Yesterday, the Chancellor announced with a fanfare that he wished to double the number of those taking advantage of shared ownership to 160,000. I do not know where he got those figures from, but it was clearly not the Department for Communities and Local Government, because according to answers from the Department, the number of homes sold under the Minister for Housing and Planning’s own social homebuy scheme in September was just one. By November, that had increased dramatically to five. I congratulate the Minister on that 500 per cent. increase. I am concerned, however, because the Housing Corporation allocated £15 million of public money to the scheme. Never in the field of house building has so much been spent so badly to provide ownership for so few. The Government’s failure, both in respect of that scheme and in so many other areas, is no accident, nor is it the consequence of neglect.