---

Planning and Energy Bill

My hon. Friend is right. As I have said, one must be sceptical about prefabrication—it may have a new name, such as MMU or MMC, but ultimately it is prefabrication. The question is whether it will produce quality homes. I have mentioned the prefabs that were erected immediately after the second world war. As a young boy, I had a friend who lived in one, and they were not nice houses or substantial constructions. Many of the blocks erected in the 1960s were built from prefabricated units, and we currently face the problem of knocking them down and starting again. The question is whether standards of prefabrication have significantly improved to enable such houses to be built effectively. I did not see the £60,000 house that the German company put together, so I do not know whether it had lasting qualities, but some new houses that are built on site—we all have such private sector developments in our constituencies—have all sorts of construction problems. I have received all kinds of complaints about houses that were built by companies that are household names. In those cases, even though the quality of the construction is covered by the house builders guarantee, the construction is not as good as it should be. There is a general question about standards—ultimately, you pays your money and you takes your choice. If we can use that mechanism to produce affordable, energy-efficient, high-quality houses, it must be welcome. However, that is a big if, and my hon. Friend was right to raise that point. While MMC is less expensive than traditional methods, some house builders have suggested that the costs are 7 to 10 per cent. higher. Such construction methods may well enable properties to be built more quickly than would otherwise be the case through standardisation, and if we are going to try significantly to increase housing supply, they may provide one of the answers. The building regulations set minimum performance standards, which may well be a way of resolving the issue.