Paul Holmes responds to a government statement on the release of the Housing Green Paper

Commenting on the Housing Green Paper on affordable housing released by the government today, Lib Dem Shadow Minister for Housing Paul Holmes said: 
 
“At last, after 10 years, the government recognise the scale of the housing crisis over which they have presided: with 71 per cent. home ownership - the highest rate in Europe - our market is under-supplied with land and houses and overheated in terms of demand and reckless mortgage lending. We approach the dangers of another wave of negative equity, such as we experienced in the ’80s and early ’90s. Mortgage debt is up 150 per cent., people are falling behind on mortgages at a rate double that of last year, and repossessions have trebled since last year.”

“That is just the start: 2 million people on fixed-term mortgages with low interest rates will experience a hike in rates in the next 18 months. First-time buyers and key workers cannot get on to the housing ladder in 93 per cent. of urban areas. The Minister spoke of the highest rate of building for 17 years, but she failed to point out that that is from a record low base, with the 2001 rate one of the lowest on record.”

On government responsibility for the housing crisis, Mr Holmes said:

“If the ownership crisis was due to government neglect, the rented housing crisis is directly due to dogmatic government policy. In the past 10 years, the government have ended council house building and starved councils of funds, despite tenants’ choice to stay with the council. Housing associations have managed to build only half the stock that is needed to replace right-to-buy losses, and only about a third of what the Barker review says is needed. The result is that waiting lists have soared from 1 million to 1.6 million.”

“We welcome the Green Paper’s proposed increases in social housing, but will the Minister confirm that despite all the media trailing by her and by the Prime Minister, the small print means more of the same for the 140 councils whose tenants have democratically chosen to stay with them? [?] The housing and regeneration Bill is supposed to put tenants at the heart of social housing; why, then, in the Green Paper, is the Minister ignoring and punishing those very tenants for exercising their democratic choice to stay with the council as landlord?”

“The Barker review said that 56,000 new social houses a year would be needed if we were to make any impact on the growing waiting list for social housing. Currently, housing associations have managed an average of about 25,000 houses a year. The Green Paper proposes an increase, by 2011, to only 45,000. Will the Minister explain such poverty of ambition after all the hype, in the face of desperate housing need?”

On environmental energy standards for developments, Mr Holmes said:

“Why is the government’s aim for all new houses to be zero-carbon by only 2016, when a target of 2011 is perfectly attainable in this country and has already been achieved in Germany?”

Mr Holmes concluded:

“Finally, will the Minister explain why, despite all the talk at other times in recent weeks of restoring democracy and autonomy to local authorities, the Green Paper represents the imposition of yet more central control, with the government dictating what houses will be built, where, by which councils and in partnership with whom? Why not simply restore autonomy to local authorities? Why not allow them to decide what they will build in their areas and get the benefit from that, and restore financial control to them?”

Please click here to read Paul Holmes’ response to the statement in full

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