John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Minister for Housing and Planning, responding to reports that George Osborne will promise extra investment for housing in his statement later today, said:
“If hot air built homes, then Conservative Ministers would have our housing crisis sorted.
"A matter of weeks ago the Housing Minister promised a million more homes, now George Osborne is saying they’ll build 400,000 more.
"Rather than rate them on what they say they will do, people will judge them on what they’ve actually done.
“George Osborne’s first act as Chancellor in 2010 was to slash housing investment by 60%, and his plans today could still mean 40% less to build the homes we need compared to the investment programme he inherited from Labour.
"The Tories’ housing record speaks for itself. The lowest peacetime level of housebuilding since David Lloyd George was prime minister in the 1920s, home ownership fallen year-on-year to the lowest level in a generation, and alongside the lowest number of genuinely affordable homes built in two decades, the number of affordable homes to buy halved since 2010.
"On housing, the Tory record is five years of failure on every front. Bluster about big housebuilding figures simply won’t cut it when people have seen the country’s housing crisis get worse with Osborne as Chancellor."
Ends
Editors notes
- The Housing
Minister promised a million new homes two months ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34209027
- The House of
Commons Library has confirmed that the last Conservatives have the worst
peacetime housebuilding record since Lloyd George
- The English Housing Survey shows that since 2010, the number of home-owning households has fallen by 205,000 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/406547/2013-%C2%AD%E2%80%9014_Section_1_Households_tables_and_figures_FINAL.xlsx
- Investment in
affordable homes to buy has plummeted since 2010, falling by 49% on the latest
figures https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/408891/Table_1000.xlsx
- The National
Audit Office found that the Conservative’s 2011-15 housing programme amounted
to a 60% cut in annual investment: https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1213465.pdf
- If the reports
of £6.9bn investment in housing over four years are accurate, then this would
still represent a significant cut in investment compared to the level under
Labour, amounting to a 40% lower average annual investment in cash terms.
- In the Autumn Statement last year, the Chancellor already promised £4.8bn of investment over this Parliament: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/382327/44695_Accessible.pdf, p. 37.