Cameron Has 'Earned £500,000 Renting Out His Home Since Becoming PM'

David Cameron has come under fire for saying he worries about his children being able to afford a home after it was revealed he is believed to have earned £500,000 in rent during his time as Prime Minister. His comments over his children's future have now been slammed by opposition politicians. Shadow housing minister John Healey said: 'If he thinks his kids have a problem buying a home, he should take a moment to think about what life is like for everyone else. Cameron and Osborne have shown no understanding of the housing pressures facing millions.' It comes as a Conservative housing bill is currently being debated in Parliament that would end life tenancies for council house residents and sell off a large swathe of social housing. Developers would then be allowed to build flats worth up to £450,000 instead of new social housing. Read more on the Daily Mail website.

Housing – Parliamentary Debate

Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab): I beg to move,

That this House notes that the Government has failed to tackle the acute housing shortage which is central to the cost of living crisis and over the last three years has presided over the lowest level of new homes built since the 1920s, with home ownership falling, rents at record highs and rising faster than wages and a record five million people in the queue for social housing; further notes that net housing supply under this Government has fallen to its lowest level since records began, and that affordable housing supply dropped in the last year by 26 per cent, homes built for social rent dropped to a 20-year low, while there has been a 104 per cent increase in in-work housing benefit claimants since 2009; believes that the Government should take action to tackle the housing shortage; and calls on the Government to boost housing supply by reforming the development industry and introducing measures to tackle landbanking, bringing forward plans to deliver a new generation of New Towns and Garden Cities and giving local authorities a new right to grow to deliver the homes their communities need.

Read more of this debate on Hansard.

Duncan Smith Leaves Commons Debate on Food Banks Early

Tory ministers have been condemned for not taking the plight of Britain's poor seriously after a rowdy Commons debate on food banks during which the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith refused to answer questions and left early. As Fiona MacTaggart, the Labour MP for Slough, described how people battled over end of day bargains in her local Tesco, she was almost drowned out by laughter and jeering from the government benches. Labour MP for Copeland in Cumbria, Jamie Reed told The Mirror: “I regret to say the laughter from the government benches says more about this issue than words ever could.” Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, and the remaining government ministers from his department left the debate after an hour, well before its conclusion. As Mr Duncan Smith and his colleagues left, the speaker John Bercow said he had no power to stop them, but said the view that it was a disgrace there was no minister there ”may be widely shared". Read more on the Independent website.

Under-occupancy Penalty (Nottingham) – Parliamentary Debate

Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab): “Nowhere to go”—that is how today’s Nottingham Post describes the crisis facing thousands of social tenants in our city. Why? Because two weeks today the Government are set to play the cruellest joke on more than 6,000 of our city’s poorest households. On the same day as they deliver a huge tax cut to the UK’s highest earners, they plan to take £4.23 million from the pockets of those people in our city who are least able to afford it. Whether we call it the bedroom tax, the under-occupancy penalty or the spare-room subsidy, it is a heartless policy which, the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research concluded, will create “severe hardship” for affected households. 

In Nottingham, 6,103 people face the bedroom tax in two weeks’ time. The key website is Homelink, which advertises properties for the arm’s length management organisation, Nottingham City Homes, and most of the local housing associations. This week, 21 one-bedroom properties and 14 two-bedroom properties are available. So even if they were all allocated to households that are currently under-occupying, that would help only 35 households—fewer than 1% of those affected. That is before one considers the 2,269 families in Nottingham waiting for a two-bedroom property, or the 7,333 individuals or couples waiting for a one-bedroom property.

In my constituency, 1,423 households are affected by the bedroom tax. In the whole of the last 12 months only 175 of Nottingham City Homes’ one or two-bedroom properties became available to let in Nottingham South, and on average people had waited 78 weeks on the list.

Read more on the Parliament website.

Under-occupancy Penalty (Nottingham) – Parliamentary Debate (2)

Steve Webb: To be clear, the rules allow for a non-resident carer who has to stay overnight to have a room...a spare bedroom is allowed for a non-resident carer.

Steve Webb: …to be clear for the record, a spare bedroom is allowed for a non-resident overnight carer and it is important that he does not alarm people about the issue. 

Housing – Parliamentary Debate

Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab): I beg to move, 

That this House notes that England faces a housing crisis; further notes with concern that housing starts, including for affordable housing, are down, and that homelessness and rough sleeping have increased under this Government; further notes that the collapse in house building and contraction in construction are a major cause of the double-dip recession; believes that the Government needs to take urgent action to get the economy and house building going again; and calls on the Government to introduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses to fund the building of 25,000 additional affordable homes, to bring forward infrastructure investment, including for housing, and to cut VAT on home improvements, repairs and maintenance to five per cent for one year to help homeowners and create jobs.  Let me start by welcoming the new Housing Minister, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), to his post.  Read more of this debate on the House of Commons website.

Decent Homes Programme (Nottingham)

On 26 June, Lillian Greenwood, MP for Nottingham South, secured a Parliamentary debate on Decent Homes funding, referring frequently to the recent evaluation of Decent Homes work in Nottingham. Read the full debate on the House of Commons website.