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Affordable Housing

May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) and her Select Committee on an extensive and weighty report that raises a series of important issues? It is testament to the significance of those issues that many Members have attended our debate. Hon. Members will be aware that since 1997, we have had low mortgage rates compared with those of past decades, and greater economic stability, in contrast to earlier housing market crashes, which has made it possible for far more people to become and remain home owners, rather than face the repossessions that took place in the past. The report also makes it clear that we face serious pressures from rising house prices across the country and that there is a serious underlying need to build more new homes for the future, so that the next generation can have homes as well.