Oral Answers to Questions

Phil Wilson Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

8. What estimate he has made of the level of affordable house building starts in 2011-12.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

18. What estimate he has made of the level of affordable house building starts in 2011-12.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)]

There were 15,698 affordable housing starts on site in 2011-12 delivered in England through programmes managed by the Homes and Communities Agency.

[Phil Wilson]

If the Government’s record on affordable homes is so good, why has the number of households in bed and breakfast-style accommodation increased by 44%?

[Andrew Stunell]

Many of these problems would have been a great deal easier if we had had an extra quarter of a million social and affordable homes, which is the reduction that the hon. Gentleman’s Administration produced. We have a social and affordable housing programme that will deliver 170,000 new affordable homes by 2015, and my right hon. Friend the Housing Minister has been very diligent in pursuing the point the hon. Gentleman raises.