Andrew George MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The Minister will know that clause 12 includes provision restricting housing associations from disposing of stock, including, for example, housing for which it is expensive to achieve an energy performance certificate rating of C. My area is haemorrhaging larger numbers of social homes because of that rather than because of right to buy. Will he ensure that rural communities, where there is a scarcity of social housing, are protected and supported in retaining those properties?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I support the Bill. It is the beginning of what the Government should be doing, but they can and should go a great deal further, both to address the need for significant growth in the scale of social housing being built and to support particularly vulnerable groups, including, as the Bill rightly says, victims of domestic violence. I am surprised that the protections from right to buy have not been extended by preventing sales of the homes held by community land trusts, housing co-ops and not-for-profit housing providers, which have very small stocks that really do need to be protected. I am also surprised that the Government have not brought forward measures to stop the bedroom tax, which Labour campaigned against during the coalition Government. At that time, I introduced a private Member’s Bill, the Affordable Homes Bill, which Labour supported, but the Government have not included its provisions in this Bill. I do hope that the Minister will take a second look at the issue of disposals and clause 12, on which I intervened on him earlier. At present, stock is haemorrhaging out into the private sector as a result of understandable requirements from the Government to achieve higher energy performance certificate levels and the decent homes standard. Where it becomes too expensive for housing associations to deliver on those requirements, there should be a presumption in favour of disposal to democratic bodies such as community land trusts at a value consistent with affordable housing. The problem is that housing associations sell those homes at open market value, when in fact they could be taken on by local charitable bodies and still be provided to local people in housing need. The Minister referred to my private Member’s Bill. There are a number of provisions in it that I hope that he will consider that I do not need to propose myself. We need to strengthen the protection for areas that immediately adjoin communities, and to protect the rural exceptions policies, which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos). We need to work out how we can deliver more social housing when hope value is being fuelled by counterproductive housing targets. That is undermining so many measures that should be available to communities to help them to deliver what is desperately needed.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Timms Review: Interim Report · Hansard source

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  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard), I welcome the broad direction of the review. I acknowledge that this is happening in the context of some people attempting to create a hostile environment—I hope Count Binface will deal with one source of that hostile environment in the weeks to come—but there is also the issue of language, as I think the Minister acknowledges. We should use less of the language of “welfare benefits” and “dependency”, and more of the language of “investment in people”, particularly investment in mental health services. Will he work with Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that people are supported before they need benefits, and that we invest in people so that their talents can be enjoyed in the workplace?