Grant Shapps
Main Page: Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield)(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
On 8 November I published an online guide for home owners affected by squatters, setting out the rights and action they can take. We are also taking steps to help get empty homes back into productive use and will be helping to reduce the scope for squatting by doing this.
Michael Ellis
I thank the Minister for that answer, but we have some long-established squatters in Parliament square. What are we going to do about them?
Grant Shapps
As the Prime Minister said yesterday, the Government share the concerns about the current state of Parliament square. I can inform the House that we intend to introduce legislation shortly.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
11. What recent steps he has taken to reduce homelessness.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
The Government are committed to tackling and preventing homelessness. We have established a cross-departmental working group on homelessness, taking in eight Departments, and the homelessness grant has been fully protected at £400 million.
Andrew Selous
Does my right hon. Friend believe that the Government could learn lessons from the recent successful scheme by the charity Broadway, which got a number of long-term homeless people off the streets and into their own accommodation at an average cost of £794, compared with the many thousands of pounds spent on them while they are on the streets?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Broadway scheme is excellent and innovative. It has taken funding and allowed the people who are involved with homelessness provision and the service users to decide how best to use it. I congratulate Broadway, which has managed to get a lot more done for £794, rather than the average of £3,000. It is an excellent scheme from which others can learn.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm whether now or in the future he plans to reduce homelessness by changing either its definition or the categories of people who are entitled to assistance and re-housing because they are homeless?
Grant Shapps
We have no plans whatever to change the categories of reasonable preference—those categories that councils have to take into account in order to state whether somebody is homeless and, therefore, provide statutory help. We have already changed the terms—the measurement—of homelessness as defined by rough sleeping, which, under the hon. Gentleman’s Government, meant that there were only 440 people sleeping rough on the country’s streets. We discovered very quickly, once we had counted such people properly, that there are actually 1,294.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
13. If he will estimate the proportion of the funding for the new homes bonus scheme which will be spent in Milton Keynes.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
The new homes bonus will match-fund the same amount of council tax for every single home built for an additional six years, and we have published a very helpful calculator on the Department’s website, where people can go today to find out how much they will get for the additional homes built.
Iain Stewart
I warmly welcome the new homes bonus, which will go a long way to providing the infrastructure that new housing estates need, but will local authorities have the discretion to use that bonus for capital and revenue items?
Grant Shapps
The new homes bonus is available for local authorities to spend as they see fit. Under the localism Bill and the flexibility that we now provide, it is absolutely possible for local authorities to use that money potentially even to borrow against, because the income stream is guaranteed for six years. It is a simple, very straightforward approach to making sure that people get more money to their area. To give Members an indication of the calculator, I should say that for every 100 homes that are built in any given area £1 million is likely to go to it over the six-year period.
Fiona Mactaggart
Milton Keynes and Slough are both in the same region, and they both face similar issues, because the homes in their areas are more likely to be in a lower council tax band than the homes in neighbouring areas. Is it fair that those neighbouring areas, which build bigger, richer houses, will get more money than places such as Milton Keynes and Slough, which have more band D places?
Grant Shapps
We can usefully draw out a couple of points from the consultation that is before the House. First, we have set the banding equally throughout the country, so a band D home represents the average band D home throughout the country. Secondly, bigger homes obviously take up more space, so people will get less money because they cannot build as many. Thirdly, the hon. Lady will be interested to know that we have over-compensated for affordable house building, ensuring that every single affordable home that is built will get more than £350 in additional money. That represents a figure of more than 125% for every affordable home built. We should get more built—
Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)
19. What estimate he has made of the change in number of first-time buyers in the housing market in the last 12 months.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
According to data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the number of first-time buyers has fallen slightly over the past 12 months, by around 5% in total.
Mr Robinson
Is the Minister aware that those figures are among the worst ever for first-time buyers? Is he further aware that the calculations put out by the British Bankers Association on Tuesday of this week show that the level of new mortgage approvals is at its lowest for 19 months, and that the level for gross mortgage lending is the lowest for 10 years? This is a disastrous situation for hundreds of thousands of young couples who want to get into the housing market. What is the Minister going to do about it?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in that analysis; I completely concur with it. It is a disaster for first-time buyers. One of the first things I did as Housing Minister was to reverse the policy of the previous Minister to say that I believe in the aspiration of people owning their homes. The reason we ended up with this problem in the first place is related to the enormous deficit and boom and bust, which was led by housing in particular. We need a more stable economy in place—not like the one that we were headed for or like the Irish one, but one that is stable for the long term. That means that cutting the deficit is the No. 1 move. I am also very aware that there are effectively only five lenders on the high street, which means that there is very little competition for first-time buyers. The banking review will report next June. It is very important that competition is opened up and we reverse the situation for first-time buyers.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
T2. What incentive does the Minister think cities such as Southampton will have, under the terms of the new homes bonus, to avoid losing millions of pounds of housing funding by having to build more homes each year than have been built in the city since the aftermath of the second world war, and on land that, because of the urban nature of such cities, does not actually exist?
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, because people often say that more homes cannot be built in a city, so perhaps the new homes bonus will not operate there. Interestingly, however, when I go to some of the most crowded places, such as Kensington and Chelsea or Westminster, I am told that even those areas have space to build and will benefit greatly from the bonus. I recommend that his local authority looks for some of the space it has and gets building.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
T5. Will the Secretary of State inform the House what guidance there will be following the proposed revocation of planning circular 04/07 to inform local authorities such as mine in Selby about planning permission for travelling show people or others wishing to develop land for use as a permanent site for travelling show people?
Grant Shapps
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that, because a lot of misinformation has been put about on these reforms. For one thing, on the flexible tenure—the idea that a tenure from two years could be provided—we are thinking about special cases, such as that of my constituent Matthew Hignett, who was paralysed from the neck down after a motorcycle accident. He cannot apply under any of the current rules for social housing, but thanks to flexible tenure—because we are making the system more flexible—he will now actually get the help and assistance that he requires. Some of the charities have made comments on that, but some, such as the YMCA, have said that they appreciate and welcome flexible tenure, so, no, I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s comments.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
My constituents welcome the fact that Milton Keynes council will become the sole planning authority for the city, but they are concerned that some of the assets currently controlled by Milton Keynes Partnership may not be used for community purposes. Will the Minister meet a delegation from the city to discuss some innovative ideas about how those assets could be used?