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Rented Housing

I am not sure whether we are not slightly at cross purposes. Yes, the agency will report to me, and of course I expect over time to have many discussions with the agency about what it can do, the scope, how it uses its resources and so on. What I thought that the hon. Gentleman was asking me, amid his plethora of questions, was whether in the three and a half weeks that I have been in this post I have been examining books of housing associations. I freely admit that that has not been my earliest priority. However, as someone who has in the course of a chequered career been shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, among other things, I take a keen interest in value for money and how public money is used, and I will always do so, not least in this sphere. As has been said, the Government's aim is to deliver 45,000 social homes a year by 2010-11. I am not sure how the confusion arose in the hon. Gentleman's mind, but the figure of 70,000 homes that he mentioned, which is in the Government's response, is the overall number of affordable homes, including those for purchase. The figure of 45,000 relates specifically to social housing for rent. Almost 25,000 social homes were delivered during 2006-07, and I understand that the expectation for 2007-08—we do not have final figures yet—suggests that we are on a reasonable trajectory to meet our target. Of course, that was before the global economic crisis, and we will all have to reassess that trajectory. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) asked me a series of questions. Actually, he did not ask questions, he made a series of sweeping assertions about the Government's complete failure, as he sees it, to act at all on the provision of social housing. He asserted, for example, that councils are prevented from building, which is certainly not my understanding. Indeed, other hon. Members have referred to building that has taken place in their local authority areas, so it would appear that that prohibition applies in Chesterfield but nowhere else. He rather ignored our target of 45,000 and the figure of 50,000 to which the Select Committee urged us to aspire. We do indeed aspire to that, and we will consider how we can deliver it. Both those targets clearly show that although I would like the Government to do more, to assert that nothing has been done is too sweeping. Both the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury mentioned larger homes, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who is sadly no longer in his place, mentioned rural housing. On each of those matters, the Government have targets. We have provided for rural homes, particularly in smaller settlements, and for larger homes. The Housing Corporation was set a target for the completion of larger homes in its current programme, including in London. None of that should be taken as suggesting that I am happy with current provision. The Select Committee is not either, and no one can be. However, it is going too far to say, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield appeared to—I hope that I misunderstood him—that nothing has been done.