New Housing Supply

It is with pleasure that I speak to the report produced by the Communities and Local Government Committee, “Financing of new housing supply”, which we published last May and to which the Government responded in July. Today provides an opportunity to consider the report’s recommendations and the Government’s response to them. I hope their response today will be more enthusiastic than the written response they gave in July. A new Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), is now in place, so he might manage to achieve that. We can also consider certain things that have happened since the report was produced about 10 months ago, and see how they may have changed our recommendations or, indeed, strengthened their case.