Council Houses

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 10:43 am on 11 June 2003.

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Photo of Tony McNulty Tony McNulty Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 10:43, 11 June 2003

I shall not, because I have too little time. If I have any time left at the end, however, I shall give way.

As I was saying, the Tory policy is as bankrupt as the empty policy of the hon. Member for Colchester, who made no suggestions as to what we might do.

I would love to go down the same road as my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree. As he so eloquently said—he happily admitted that this was not his phrase, although it still brought back happy memories—we cannot call back yesterday. I would love to do that, but we must think in substantive terms about how to deal with the real problems that exist now. I fully accept that they exist not only in London and the south-east, although those areas have particular problems. My hon. Friend is right that we must think of other models, and together with the Housing Corporation we have set up the low-cost home ownership taskforce under Brenda Dean to explore such models. We want to get to the stage where we can assist people and build on what we have done with the starter home initiative and other key worker initiatives. We want to assist people—key workers and others—into an affordability model for home ownership, without them taking the public or social sector unit with them.

I am keen to explore further the build-for-sale model that my hon. Friend Mr. Drew made a thoughtful contribution. It would be inappropriate for me to talk in detail about the live large-scale voluntary transfer process that is unfolding in Stroud, but I do not fully share his characterisation of many aspects of the LSVT process. Although he pulled back from the comment a tad and I partly know what he meant by it, it was patronising and unbecoming of him to suggest—or even to imply—that 18 months was a long time for the lovely people in council houses to endure and engage with such a process. When tenants get engaged and empowered through this process or ALMOs, and finally get some notion of having control over the future of their homes and communities, it is an enlivening experience.

I assure my hon. Friend that the LSVT process is now fair and honest and I do not endorse what he says about Defend Council Housing: like the hon. Member for Colchester, it is,

"full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing" and offers no hope to council tenants.