Housing Waiting Lists

Part of Opposition Day — [5th Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 12:41 pm on 11 February 2009.

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Photo of Grant Shapps Grant Shapps Shadow Minister (Communities and Local Government) (Housing and Planning), Co-Chair, Conservative Party 12:41, 11 February 2009

I am tempted to say that the current Administration always like to think that it is someone else's fault. If it is not the fault of somebody else abroad, it is the fault of the Government who were in power all those years ago. It is true that houses need repair, but I should have thought that that was obvious when the Prime Minister made the 1994 Blackpool conference speech in which he stated that the money from housing sales would be put to use to build more homes. That policy option was available at the time, but what has happened since is that the money that was ring-fenced from right-to-buy sales has not been used to provide new council housing.

In fact, when we left office, 1,550 council houses were still being built each year, whereas last year the figure had fallen to 450—and that, by the way, was an all-time record. There has been a tremendous drop in the number of council houses being built, and there are choices that the Government could have made over any of the last 12 years to help provide more social affordable housing. They failed to make those decisions, which is why they now preside over a housing waiting list that has nearly doubled during their time in office.