Part of Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 14 May 2003.
If the last Administration had been seriously interested in increasing the housing stock and the availability of social housing, they would not have reduced the moneys available to local authorities to provide social housing, year on year. Their sole housing policy was to provide the right to buy. We have restricted that by reducing the discounts in housing crisis areas. We think that that policy is right, and we intend to pursue it.
I repeat: I think that our policy of reducing interest rates is better than spending £40 billion on subsidising houses simply to implement the principle of the right to buy for 1 million people, and it increases the number of people owning their homes by the same amount. The right hon. Gentleman should have discussed that during his most recent bonding session with his leader.