Mr Archie Norman: The hon. Gentleman and I do not disagree on this. We all recognise that houses must be built in the south-east; the question is the extent to which we do so. Do we build to adapt the housing stock to the needs of local people, and of net immigration from abroad and outside London? Do we say "What we really want to do is double, or increase further, the rate of house building in the...
Mr Archie Norman: My argument is not that regional disparities will right themselves. It is that if we adopt a national approach, advocate a doubling of the rate of house building and fail to address the regional issues, that will worsen the problem, not diminish it.
Mr Archie Norman: I welcome this opportunity to discuss the Barker report, and I thank the Minister for giving up her time to be here. I am sure that her response will address our points about the serious issue that rightly received substantive examination in the Barker review. The Barker report was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to develop recommendations on housing supply in Britain. Its...
Mr Archie Norman: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree with the thrust of his remarks. There are real problems with housing supply in Britain, both in terms of the ladder of home ownership, and on the question of affordability, particularly in rural areas. I shall address those issues later in my remarks. The Barker report, by adopting the overall thesis that we can build our way out of...
Mr Archie Norman: My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. Most of us accept that the objective should be not to reduce house price inflation—that may be desirable, although it is questionable whether it can be delivered—but to reduce house price volatility. That would be of benefit to the wider economy. However, to do that, we would have to create a much better link between housing supply and housing demand,...
Mr Archie Norman: I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman is getting into an analysis of the issue that Barker never covered. The review is essentially a countrywide analysis. It does not seek to understand what we should do about areas of surplus housing and housing poverty. It is probably true that if we depress the rate of increase of house prices, we will reduce the chances of releasing...
Mr Archie Norman: I agree. Again, we are getting into issues that are not sufficiently analysed by Barker. Almost all housing is local. House prices may be determined by macro-economic conditions, but affordability, scarcity and housing poverty are local issues and have to be addressed on that basis by agencies and instruments of Government as well as the marketplace. It is about adapting the prescriptions to...
Mr Archie Norman: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's point. I shall come on to how to establish what local need really is and how to address it. We can argue about whether there is a housing surplus or a deficit—the Europe Economics study suggests that the surplus has increased from 2.4 per cent. to 3.7 per cent., but it is over 4 per cent. in the north-east and north-west and, unsurprisingly, just over 2 per...
Mr Archie Norman: My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I want to come on to. As soon as we adopt the idea that many more houses are going to be built in the south-east, there are profound implications not only for the environment and public expenditure, but also for migration between different areas of the country. It is important to understand the effect of those implications, particularly on the areas...
Mr Archie Norman: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point, because it gives me the opportunity to clarify what I am saying. The Barker report does not make the case for more house building in the south-east, as such; rather, it argues for doubling the rate of house building in aggregate, based on aggregate national statistics. Perhaps I am doing the report an injustice, but I assert that the...
Mr Archie Norman: I give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes).
Mr Archie Norman: My hon. Friend makes the point much more eloquently than I could have done. If there is a serious housing problem in Britain, involving housing poverty and an inability to provide our children with a decent quality of life, it is in the inner cities, particularly in the north and the midlands. A report on housing supply that neglects to mention that issue misses the point to a degree that is...
Mr Archie Norman: My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. It shows that the movement of population is a complex matter. It is not as simple as saying that people are moving from the north to the south-east; they are not. Typically, when kids leave school or go to university they migrate to jobs in London; they get married in London and then move out to the south-east; and they may retire to the...
Mr Archie Norman: The hon. Gentleman is right: it is not possible to address the problem of housing supply outside the context of regional policy. The difficulty is that the Barker report is blind to that. It is not interested in what happens locally, but starts from the assertion that we can solve the problem by building our way out of house price inflation. That misses the important points that are being...
Mr Archie Norman: They are complex issues, which is why we should be cautious about making sweeping judgments about house-building policy and its impact on the economy. As to whether people migrate from the south to the north, I suspect that the evidence is not yet sufficient; if that were found to be the case, it would be a reversal of the trend of the past 30 years. Some cities in the north have expanded,...
Mr Archie Norman: The hon. Gentleman and I can agree that there is a requirement to deal with the problem of affordable housing in most parts of the country, but we will not necessarily agree on the means to achieve that. I do not think that the idea of bringing back large-scale council house-building programmes is a runner, and it will certainly not be endorsed by the Deputy Prime Minister. However, it is...
Mr Archie Norman: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was present when I explained the premise on which I base my remarks. The contention of the Barker report is that we can build our way out of house price inflation. Kate Barker asserts that if we double the rate of house building, house price inflation may come down to the European average. That is not a conclusion accepted by most economists, and I...
Mr Archie Norman: The hon. Gentleman may say that, but the thrust of my remarks is that the aggregate figures, taking the country as a whole, do not tell the local story. There are local scarcities, which need to be tackled by a Government who facilitate local solutions. That is not the thrust of the Barker report, which takes the view that there is an aggregate national problem, which can be solved with...
Mr Archie Norman: What plans he has to increase investment in railway stations.
Mr Archie Norman: Does the Minister recall that in successive answers to parliamentary questions, Ministers have reassured Members that resources would be made available and steps taken to ensure that stations meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995? Yet throughout the country, stations such as mine in Tunbridge Wells remain completely non-compliant, no resources have been forthcoming...
