Joint webchat with Conservative and Labour housing minister and shadow housing minister, MONDAY 2 MARCH 1pm

[RowanMumsnet]

We're pleased to announce something a bit different to shake up your Monday lunchtime: a joint simultaneous webchat with the Conservative Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis, and the Labour Shadow Housing Minister Emma Reynolds. They’ll be joining us live for an hour on Monday March 2 at 1pm.

We know that lots of MNers are interested in housing issues, so here's your opportunity to quiz Brandon and Emma about house-building, the Green Belt, planning restrictions, new towns, private landlords, rent levels, sustainable building, social and affordable housing, and their long-term plans for making supply meet demand - and anything else that catches your eye. How do the Conservatives and the Labour party plan to build and fund housing for the next generation - and what do they want to do about short-term housing issues? Now's your chance to find out.

Brandon Lewis MP is Minister of State for Housing and Planning. He was elected as the Conservative MP for Great Yarmouth in May 2010.

Emma Reynolds MP was elected as the Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East in May 2010. She is the Shadow Housing Minister attending Shadow Cabinet.

Please join us on Monday at 1pm. As ever, if you can’t make it then, please do leave your questions on this thread in advance. And (also as ever) please remember our webchat guidelines.

Thanks
MNHQ

[EmmaReynoldsMP]

A big thank you to everybody who has asked questions. Housing is a big priority for me and for the Labour Party. It was fantastic to receive so many comments and questions on this incredibly important issue.

[BrandonLewisMP]

Thank you for inviting me to take part in this event today, I am also happy to pick up any further queries so please do email me if there any that we did not make it to today.

We all agree we need to build more homes in this country, I believe we can do that and protect our wonderful green belt which our policies have made clear. I will continue to work to ensure we develop the market for both supply and demand to ensure we do build the homes we need, in the right places with good quality of build and design. Our starter home scheme is a direct way we will help with affordability by making 200,000 more homes available to first time buyers at a 20% discount. This builds on our new affordable house building programme, which is building at the fastest rate in some 20 plus years. Added to the 240,000 house planning applications approved last year and now having building back to 2007 levels, I think we are on the right path. There is more to do and we will continue to work to ensure we have a strong economy which is needed to ensure we can build the homes we need.

Again, apologies for my typing skils (:-)) & thank you for the invite from Mumsnet, this is a superb forum to discuss things and I have enjoyed being here.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

giving local people a real say in planning

Aylesbury Estate - 73% turnout, 73% voted against the proposed plans. They were ignored. ~2250 council houses now due for demolition.

[SmiteYouWithThunderbolts]

Milton Keynes has just been named sixth most unaffordable area for housing in Great Britain. What will you do over the next parliamentary term to relieve pressure on the South East and invest in the North of England in order to rebalance jobs, population and economy?

www.mkweb.co.uk/HOUSING-Milton-Keynes-sixth-unaffordable-place/story-26096126-detail/story.html

[RowanMumsnet]

A big thank you to Brandon and Emma for giving up their lunchtimes today - and many thanks to MNers for their questions.

[bedunkalilt]

Thank you to both for answering my questions. And thank you MN for providing a platform to ask these questions, not sure how I would otherwise (aren't you all so lovely ).

[AlphaBravoHenryFoxtons]

BrandonLewisMP - You wouldn't be charging CGT on someone's principal home, you would be charging CGT on a financial gain, at the point of disposal. At which point it is no longer their principal home! CGT is a fair tax in that it taxes financial gain, and costs can be offset. SDLT is not a fair tax, it causes all sorts of problems for people and distortions in the property market. People have to pay it BEFORE they've even moved into a property and BEFORE they've benefitted from the easy financial gains that seem to come from being a property owner in the SE of England.

The Mansion Tax plan is laughable (much like the Labour party itself)!

[WhistlingPot]

Thank you EmmaReynolds and BrendonLewis (and MNHQ of course!).

It's just a shame I feel none the wiser on how MPs being landlords, even if declared, affects their voting.

It seems similar to issues raised in this blog:

socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/nhs-privatisation-compilation-of.html

[stubbornstains]

Brandon, I notice that, although Emma has answered my question about which way she voted on the Private Member's Bill to abolish bedroom tax, you haven't. Also, did you vote against Labour's attempt to stop letting agents charging fees?

[HeeHiles]

Whistling I'm none the wiser either - just heard the same old same old that I've been hearing for years but nothing has changed

[noideawhattoget]

thank you Emma for answering my question, but i notice that Brandon didnt answer it. Do you have an answer please sir?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Thank you for setting this up, MN. I am quite disappointed that neither guest responded to either mine or HeeHiles' questions. What is happening in London with the mass loss of council homes is a disgrace.

[WhistlingPot]

Yes PubeGardens, another case of there being more telling in what they didn't answer, than what they did.

[Arrowfanatic]

Still as clear as mud then.

Seems a lot of focus on affordable rented properties but what about everyone in the south stuck in mortgaged houses who cannot afford to move anymore? House prices here are easily £200k more than the north but we can hardly shift every homeowner who needs to move to the north. We bought at a time when even on my husbands salary of around £40k a year we could afford the area, 7 years down the line we need to move again but now the same houses are hundreds of thousands of pounds more expensive. How is it we can be considered a high earner and still not be able to afford to live where my husbands work is?

[AlphaBravoHenryFoxtons]

In order to encourage people to move from the crowded SE/London to the North/Midlands/Wales/Scotland etc, perhaps they could offer a SDLT-free transaction?

[WhistlingPot]

3 Year tenancies under labour might be an improvement on the instability given with 6 month contracts, but just what effect this will really have is anyone's guess. It still won't stop a family who anticipated a long let, and who are expecting a child from being evicted if their ll decides to sell.

And as for "by making the whole sector more long term we want to see the market develop so that a home can be sold but a tenant can remain in the property" - how will this work? Will they place restrictions on how rental properties can be sold?

[Isitmebut]

WhistlingPot .... How many private landlords know their own personal circumstances, the interest rates they are funding at, the conditions housing market (boom or bust), and what government policies will be over that time - so unless a single person, with loads of equity in the home so able to accept the future risk of a low rental yield on refunding/renewing a let - any landlord will be mad not to sell up asap if Labour gets in.

• Where will those tenants be then?
  

• Where is the guarantee any property will remain in the BTlet sector if a current landlord sells up, as potential new BTL entrants think the combination of a lower yield, less rights and an ONGOING over government regulated market is far too much of a risk?
  

• Where will the overall numbers of rental properties available be then, apart from lower?
  

The only way to get 2,3, to 5 year long term secure landlords is via the private sector companies looking to lock into long term yields, but they won't stand for too much political shit/risk driving down returns they could achieve in fixed income markets elsewhere, either.

“Pru plans foray into UK rented housing”
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a35a999e-9893-11e2-a853-00144feabdc0.html#axzz330iRnEwP

“The Prudential is to become the first UK institutional investor to enter the UK rented housing market in recent times, paving the way for the growth of a corporate-backed letting market at a time of acute housing shortage.”

Clearly the most secure rentals are council, then social and then private investments, and any political attempts to change that BEFORE we have built more council social homes, could cause a rental home shortage crisis within a few years.

[HelenaDove]

Thankyou for answering my questions.

[Isitmebut]

P.S. I can hear the Labour gasted flabbers spotting there might be a return for shareholders and saying 'PROFIT, PROFIT, we'd rather the people do without than give any big company a profit'. lol

Private investors including fund managers screwed by Brown on pension saving in 1997 and to be put at a 'money purchase' disadvantage to fat cat quangocrat and MP's public sector Final Salary pension schemes by Miliband in 2015 capping the tax advantage, HAVE to look for additional returns.

So those who have their heads firmly up their own rear ends thinking people saving for THEIR retirement should only invest (in homes) for the social good, should realize the more citizens have to rely on a Labour government increase of the national debt for generations to come to fund their State pension, best think again, as they will.

[andango]

I'd say that was pretty clearly Emma Reynolds 1 - Brandon Lewis 0.

Glad she's not a BTL landlord and has experience of living in a council flat and even attempted to answer some of the questions.

Brandon, on the other hand, apart from looking like he's aged 12 and being unable to spell (not his fault - presumably his secretary/mum does all the typing normally) failed to respond to a single critical point.

How surprising.

[andango]

Poor Brandon - he's in a marginal seat, apparently. Can't imagine his performance here will do a lot to save him. Very unimpressive.

[Isitmebut]

I reminded Emma of Labour's pee poor record in housing during 13-years averaging 115,000 homes and quoting Shelter's 2009 figures, asked how a Labour government in 2015 could build 200k new homes when can't work with the private sector AND how they will stop private landlords selling reducing the rental supply stock - AND THIS WAS THE ANSWER I GOT.

"You're right that there is a huge shortage of council and housing association homes. As somebody who grew up in a council flat I am passionate about making sure that we boost the number of social homes. I am proud of the last Labour Government's Decent Homes Programme."

"Should I become the Housing Minister after the General Election, I am determined to make sure that the market starts to deliver the number of homes we need as a country because as you say the number of new households is increasing faster than the number of homes being built."

Key questions on key promises Labour made and not a whiff of an answer within her reply.

At least we know a Conservative administration don't scare businesses and their investment shitless.

[AlphaBravoHenryFoxtons]

The Tories continue to contort themselves trying to keep motivated voters wealthy older people happy and Labour (after 13 years in power behaving just like Tories) are currying favour with voters by taking a game of mass redistribution, most of it unworkable.

[NBTA00]

Thank you Mumsnet for giving the space to raise boat dwellers' issues with Canal & River Trust and to Emma Reynolds for agreeing to look into this. In the mean time, please sign this petition, thank you.

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/boats-are-homes-prevent-the-eviction-of-boat-dwellers?source=facebook-share-button&time=1424356599

[Isitmebut]

AlphaBravoHenryFoxtens ..... do you not think that older voters were put upon under those 13-years of Labour?

The Brown 1997 raid on Private Pensions saving over £120 bil in tax credits but costing pension funds including Final Salary schemes (most now closed) around £260 bil in lost returns AND the rises in the State Pension I doubt kept pace with just the rises in Council Tax of around 110% in total throughout their administration?

The "game of mass redistribution" has thus been going on for years, I just not sure where the money went - but they do NOT understand how markets work and I fear all these 'controls' on landlords they talk about not, hugely populist I grant you for obvious reasons, will get private landlords heading for the Letting exit, far quicker than they can be replaced.