Speeches by Lewin.

“It is really important that every Government has a policy to help people who cannot rely on the wealth of the bank of mum and dad to get on the housing ladder. Governments of many different colours have tried lots of different approaches. I am going to come to a question about mortgage guarantees because that was in th…”

“I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not normally read in the Chamber—I do not think it is good form—but in this case I will. This is available on the shadow Minister’s website. He says: “I am also proud of the UK’s world-leading role in tackling climate change…with the UK being the first country to introduce legall…”

“I recognise that improvements were made by the last Government, but if the right hon. Gentleman is listening carefully—I am sure he is—he will hear that that is the theme of my speech, and of comments from Government Members. It is so sad to see the Conservative party walk away from the Climate Acts and from being a pa…”

“As I will go on to say, I am telling them that investing in a decarbonisation scheme and having warm homes is exactly the way that we get bills down. Just last week, I met Tina in Hatfield. Tina is a council house resident, and she benefited from the social housing decarbonisation scheme. Her home was retrofitted last …”

“I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, and I will go on to talk more about why investment now is good for us, in both the short term and the long term. We have a genuinely sad state of affairs. There have been Conservatives who have taken the climate very seriously, from Lord Deben, with his leadership of the Climate Ch…”

“I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss energy and climate change, although I am still reeling from the speech made by the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). By my count, she talked more about mushrooms than about climate change. The debate comes just weeks after…”

“That is very welcome. Just briefly, is there similar guidance for housing associations? As it stands, they build significantly more homes than councils, but I am in a position, as are most of this Committee, I suspect, where we need both to build more at scale.”

“I want to build on that, because there is no doubt that that £39 billion has really been welcomed. I have talked to people in councils and housing associations who have told me that. My key question is this: how can we use some of that money to help develop the capacity of councils and housing associations to build dir…”

“The last question from me, Chair, is on shared ownership. Colleagues will not be surprised that I come back to this subject. It is one of real interest to me. I was fortunate in that I benefited from shared ownership. It is how I got on the housing ladder. In the data that we have just been talking about for 2023-24, a…”

“Good afternoon. I am Andrew Lewin, MP for Welwyn Hatfield.”

“Can I come back, Secretary of State, very briefly to your exchange with Will on elections next year? We all enjoy elections around this table. We would not be here if we did not. Sarah might be the exception.”

“That means yes to elections next year, as scheduled.”

“She might enjoy them even more than we do, but there is a serious point. This is true in Hertfordshire and other places across the country. At the moment, in Welwyn Hatfield, we have a district council and a county council, and we elect by thirds. What that means practically is that we have had elections every year sin…”

“Good morning. I am Andrew Lewin, MP for Welwyn Hatfield.”

“I am pleased that you have clarified that there are lots of instances where this is unacceptable. As a member of the Committee, I think that all the Committee would welcome seeing good practice and seeing what we could learn from it, but let us not dismiss the suffering of tens of thousands of people.”

“I want to come back to Timothy’s answer to Sarah’s very good question. We are on the record here, so I want to make sure that I understood correctly. We have been talking for about an hour this morning about some shocking conditions in private rented homes. In part of your answer you said that there is too much focus o…”

“The latest English Housing Survey estimates that one in five homes in the private rented sector are non-decent. That means that, if you are a private renter, you are more likely to live in a non-decent home than in any other tenure. That being said, 20 years ago the figures were even worse. It was almost half of homes …”

“There is a last quick question from me. I am interested in whether you think this is fundamentally driven by a lack of choice. If the Government succeeded in, for example, increasing the number of people who own their own home, and built substantially more homes for social rent, would one result be to drive up standard…”

“There were some really powerful testimonies there, so thank you. As a brief follow-up, I am interested in areas of the country where you think this problem is at its most acute. I would assume cities, because we hear that often, but that may not be the case. This is a panel of parliamentarians who represent constituenc…”

“In one of the first contributions I had the privilege of making in the House, I raised the case of the Blake family. Their son Stuart was infected aged six, and he died at the age of 27, back in 2006. I have been in regular contact with the family, and it was my privilege to show them around this place just a few weeks…”