Thursday, 20 September 2012

Mark Prisk Writes about His New Job as Housing Minister

Writing in his local newspaper, Mark Prisk sets out his thoughts on his new job.
*Too Few Homes - The population is rising.  It is true that migration contributes around 40 per cent of this population growth. That’s one of the reasons why this Government is committed to cutting the numbers of migrants from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands per year.  However the main reason for the growth is that we are, thankfully, living longer.  If the housing market were functioning properly then you would expect it to respond to this rising demand and deliver the homes needed. But the truth is the housing market is highly volatile, while often failing to deliver the homes where people need them. This has driven prices up and priced many first-time buyers out of the market.
*Kick-Starting the Market - To kick-start the market, we have helped create a new and innovative scheme. Called NewBuy, it enables homebuyers to secure mortgages with at least 5 per cent deposit on new-build houses and flats.  Alongside this we are helping young first-time buyers by providing a further £280m for the FirstBuy equity loan scheme.  There are also many publicly-owned sites which have yet to be unlocked for new housing and development. Some 40 per cent of previously used land, suitable for development, is in Government hands with local or national government. 
*Helping Tenants - The next challenge is how we can reform social housing to help those on lower incomes.  I am determined that we increase the total investment in this sector, by levering in much more private investment, and by giving social landlords much greater freedom over the type of tenancies they can offer.  The current rigid rules often mean that the social housing stock we have is underused, because of old rules that don’t work today.
*Tackling Neighbours from Hell - We need to make it simpler and easier to tackle this behaviour.  That means ensuring social landlords can act decisively and that those who break the rules know that they will be evicted if they don’t mend their ways. 
*Helping the Homeless - It’s true that the level of homelessness is still roughly half what it was just a few years ago. Yet it’s still wrong that tens of thousands of people will tonight be without a home, often through no fault of their own. My predecessor has already acted to cut the number of households in temporary accommodation.  Homeless people often have many other problems in their lives, involving family breakdown, drugs and so on which need to be addressed in the round. The Home Secretary is taking the lead on this and I want to be an active part of that approach, so we can deal with the causes of homelessness.
Read more on the Hertfordshire Mercury website.

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