Communities and Local Government/Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. It is not really my job to add even more yuck to the yuck factor—but how can the Conservative party seriously expect Londoners to believe that it could run a world city, when it cannot even run a process to select its candidate? As a progressive Government, we want to give more people the chance to realise their aspirations, and to extend opportunity and prosperity to all. Because we have given people a greater opportunity to own their own homes, thanks to low and stable inflation and interest rates, the number of home owners has risen by 1.8 million since 1997. As was promised in our election manifesto, by 2010 we will have helped 100,000 extra households, including key workers such as nurses and teachers, into low-cost home ownership—and I am keen that we should go further. We are doubling investment in affordable housing and we will be delivering an extra 10,000 social homes a year by 2007-08. However, we face significant challenges. Too many first-time buyers and young families remain unable to get a foot on the housing ladder. As Kate Barker made clear in her report two years ago, there has been a 30 per cent. increase in the number of households over the past three decades and a 50 per cent. drop in house building. That is clearly unsustainable, so we are taking decisive action. The building of new houses has increased, and in 2005 it hit its highest rate since 1990.