I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) in saying that I am proud of Labour’s record on housing. I am proud of how we invested in 2 million more new homes, increased home ownership by 1 million, and made sure that more than 1 million homes were brought up to a decent standard, fit for human habitation, which is what we need to see now.
Since 2010, we have seen home ownership fall by 200,000 as house prices have risen by an average of 32%. Of those homes that have been built, less than 20% have been affordable, as councils’ rights to impose affordable limits have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) said, been taken away, with the rug pulled out from under their feet. What have we had instead? We have had £10 billion invested in the Help to Buy scheme, which even Morgan Stanley said has almost entirely gone towards raising house prices and increasing the share prices of the biggest house builders.
In my constituency, those house builders are not content with all the assistance from Help to Buy. Almost all their new homes are sold on leasehold—or fleecehold, as it has been called—so people do not feel that they actually own the home in which they live, despite having paid an inflated price for it. They still have to pay ground rent; they are still being fleeced with maintenance charges; and they still have to pay fees to a third party. It does not feel like home ownership any more. This is actually private rental as well as home ownership.
11 pm
With the lack of housing supply and the decrease in home ownership, we have seen the number of households in private rented accommodation soar to more than 5 million, and the figure is set to rise to 6 million by 2021. That would not be a problem if private landlords were forced to make their homes fit for human habitation and if, in an era when we are moving nearly 8 million households on to universal credit, we had landlords who had faith in the Government’s universal credit system. Landlords’ right of redress to reclaim rent arrears has been removed under universal credit, so it is no wonder that 73% of them do not feel comfortable that the Department for Work and Pensions will enable them to recoup their arrears.