It is a great pleasure to say that the Government strongly support the Bill, as I think the House is well aware from the comments that have been made. I welcome the commitment of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), a fellow Norfolk MP, who has championed the cause of self-builders and custom builders as chair of the all-party group on self-build, custom-build and independent housebuilding—I understand that its name is shortly to change again. I am happy to endorse this innovative piece of legislation.
This debate is a really good example of what this House does fantastically well and of the importance of private Members’ Bills. My hon. Friend has taken up this matter of his own accord, worked it through and come up with a Bill that enjoys cross-party support and will be an important step for our country. Thousands of people across the country are taking on this type of building project, and we want to see that grow much more. In years to come we may well be able to look back and see that that growth in the market started here in the work we are doing this morning on this private Member’s Bill.
I will take this opportunity to explain to the House why the Government are so strongly supportive of custom builders and how the Bill will help to take forward our proposals for a new right to build, which we are currently consulting on. The Government are committed to increasing housing supply and helping more people achieve their aspiration of a home of their own. When we came into office, house building in England had fallen to levels not seen since the 1920s and many sites across the country were stalled. We have spent the past four and half years fixing that, and we can see our policies working.
However, we must also accept that for many years this country has not built enough houses and that our population is growing. We can see that when we think about our own families. My parents had three children and we lived in one home. All of my siblings now have a home of their own and we all have, or are about to have, two children. That means that within two generations
one family will have gone from needing one house to needing 10 or more, depending on how many children my siblings end up having—my wife has made it very clear that two children, wonderful though they are, is quite enough. We are seeing our population and the need for housing grow.
We are rebuilding demand through Help to Buy so that hard-working people with sufficient earnings can get on and fulfil their aspiration to own their own home. We are boosting supply through planning reforms, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) outlined, with the national planning policy framework widely recognised as a fantastic step forward. We are investing through our get Britain building campaign, large sites and builders finance funds, which make sites viable for builders so that they can build out their sites and do what they do best—build the homes we need. That action is delivering more new homes. Nearly 480,000 homes have been built since 2010, including over 200,000 affordable homes. New housing construction orders and the registration of new homes across country are at their highest level since 2007.
However, we know that we cannot just rely on a delivery model that is dominated by volume house builders. Much of the housing built during the last boom was in the wrong place and was of the wrong size, which did not meet homebuyers’ aspirations. That is why, looking forward, we want to see greater diversity in the housing market, with more competition, more small and medium-sized home builders, more new entrants and more new development, to increase the speed and quality of the housing we build in this country.
We want to see small builders grow further. The hon. Lady outlined the importance of small builders building on small plots. The Bill can directly provide a huge boost to the small building industry, because it will appeal to those kinds of builders to pick up the contracts from home owners, and potential home owners, who want to be part of the custom and self-build market. We have also introduced the builders finance fund for small builders. I was pleased to see Lloyds announce this week its plans, following our meeting last week, for a £50 million fund aimed directly at small builders.
The Government strongly believe that custom and self-build housing can play a crucial role as part of a wider package of measures in securing greater diversity and helping to deliver the homes people actually want. The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) mentioned television programmes such as Kevin McCloud’s “Grand Designs”, which bring a new profile to custom build. The intention of this Bill, and the fantastic work my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk is doing, is to make people more aware of that opportunity and make it more available to them, turning it into a wider market. More people will start to appreciate that they can build their own home at an affordable price, and often more affordably than buying directly from a developer.
It is right to put on record the important distinction between custom build and self-build within the sector. The definition of “self-build” covers someone who directly organises the design and construction of their new home, while “custom build” covers someone who commissions a specialist developer to help to deliver their own home. What matters for the purposes of this Bill and our proposals on a new right to build is that we develop a framework that promotes both.