I have the unenviable task of following the eloquence of the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who spoke without notes and made extremely important points about the report. If he will excuse me, I will not be quite as rigorous or eloquent.
Housing is obviously an incredibly important issue for us all, not just for getting future generations somewhere decent to live, but for this country’s future economic prosperity. Without substantial improvement in our building rates and the production of new housing supply, our economy will struggle to grow, and we need it to grow. The Chartered Institute of Housing released a report just this month that said that home ownership was unachievable for many young people. The report suggested that since 1992 it is down 67% among those
aged 25 to 34. That is a pretty stunning statistic. The average age of the first-time buyer is now approaching 40, at 37.5. It now takes 83 months to save the deposit required to buy a house, compared with the 30 months it took 10 years ago.
At present, investors, builders and the market seem reluctant to invest in new housing, despite large waiting lists. Locally, we have 3,000 people on the housing waiting list in Winchester, 2,900 in east Hampshire and 4,500 in Havant. These are prosperous areas of the country, where one might expect the lists to be rather shorter. The current economic cycle has led us to a situation in which lenders are reluctant to lend, builders find it difficult to build and buyers find it difficult to buy.