Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Warburton and Sajid Javid

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We work very closely with the Treasury. That is why the Chancellor has personally turned up to hear the hon. Gentleman’s question; the hon. Gentleman must have given him advance notice. He will have to wait for the police settlement, which is not too far off, but he should question why he voted against the police settlement last year.

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

The Children’s Commissioner estimates that at least 46,000 children in England have been targeted by drug gangs and coerced by intimidation, violence and criminal incentives into the so-called county lines system of selling drugs across the country. What work is being done by my right hon. Friend’s Department to address this appalling exploitation of children and young people?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Warburton and Sajid Javid

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the effect of the Help to Buy scheme and the reduction in stamp duty on first-time buyers.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)]

The number of first-time buyers was at an 11-year high in 2017, at 365,000 across the UK. That shows that our concerted action to get more people into home ownership through initiatives such as Help to Buy and the new stamp duty exemption for first-time buyers is working.

[David Warburton]

It sounds like my right hon. Friend agrees with me that home ownership is a fundamentally good thing. Some 86% of our fellow citizens aspire to it, and there is nothing like spreading the economic benefits of ownership more widely in society. Does he further agree that we should use every policy lever at our disposal to encourage home ownership and to give those all-important first-time buyers a leg up on to the ladder?

[Sajid Javid]

I could not agree more. The overwhelming majority of people want to own their own home, and we need to do more to help them to do just that. The plan that we have set out, including last week, to build 300,000 homes a year will help more and more people to realise that dream.