Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — Amendment of the Law

Part of Provisional Collection of Taxes – in the House of Commons at 2:21 pm on 20 March 2013.

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Photo of Meg Hillier Meg Hillier Labour, Hackney South and Shoreditch 2:21, 20 March 2013

My hon. Friend makes a good point.

We do not have full details about the exact implications of the measure for overseas owners—albeit perhaps those with a tax footprint in the UK—or whether they can benefit from an interest-free loan. There are many questions about the measure, which I simply pose at this point, because it does not seem to do anything in particular to target those in greatest need. We see nothing for the growing number of private renters who struggle to pay high rents in areas such as mine, who will effectively be paying the mortgages that many borrowers may take out under this proposal.

We have a promise of more housing supply, but in my area we have seen many properties sold over a weekend to investors from Hong Kong or Dubai. They might be good landlords in that they are not cowboys, but they are after the rental yield, so we see a high turnover of population. These are not local homes for local people. We have also had the announcement of an increase in the right to buy discount, to £100,000. My area has been ravaged because people have, obviously understandably, taken the opportunity to buy their homes, yet within a few years they are inherited by people paying high rents or purchased by those who could have purchased other properties, thereby reducing our valuable—and so far not replaced—affordable housing stock.

This is the same Government who want all new affordable housing to be let at 80% of local private rents, which in my area and many others will put it out of the reach of ordinary working people. We see a Government wanting to cleanse areas such as Shoreditch and Hackney, along with other high-price areas, of people on lower incomes and also provide more housing, but for those at the higher end of the scale. Overall, we see muddle. This is also the same Government who have a Department—the Department for Communities and Local Government—that wanted offices in Shoreditch converted into fancy loft apartments, not homes for local people, instead of the kind of business space that is so often visited by the occupants of No. 10 and

No. 11. We will lose business but not get the homes we need. The Chancellor has woefully failed to tackle the housing crisis in this country.