Speeches by Caliskan.

“With your permission, Chair, I just want to make a point on value for money. Obviously, a huge amount of taxpayers’ money is used to cover the cost of homelessness, but one reason why the public find it so difficult to accept that such an amount of money is spent is that the quality of the housing that it is spent on i…”

“I do not think I have any further questions.”

“I think you have probably answered this, but the question was, realistically, what needs to change for housing targets to be met?”

“I should acknowledge that the announcement on right to buy is really welcome. Particularly for local authorities that are losing their housing stock, being able to retain 100% of their supply will make a difference. I will return to the point about viability, because it is fundamental to supply: the housing crisis will…”

“Specifically on the capitalisation—will it be in exceptional circumstances, and will each local authority have to approach the Department for that, or is the intention to allow a more generic model that allows local authorities to just capitalise?”

“The reason I asked—and I will re-familiarise myself with that—is that local authorities are often not forward in talking about the challenges they are facing. If we are honest, often their financial situation is politicised, which puts them off being as communicative as they need to be. We do not want to find ourselves…”

“I will be quick. According to the Local Government Association, in 2023 local authorities subsided for about £200 million compared with £40 million 10 years previously, because the DWP only subsidised local authorities based on the 2011 LHA rates—so you can quantify it. I understand the point about Ministers making dec…”

“I want to focus on the supply of housing, beginning with a very open question. Do you agree that the housing crisis demonstrates a broken housing system nationally, and that it is fundamentally caused by the lack of supply of housing?”

“I want to focus on the role that local authorities can play in housing supply. Over the last few months—probably 18 months—there seems to have been a particular challenge around the viability of the housing pipeline. I want to get a sense of your understanding of how many projects are being held up because of viability…”

“With that in mind, according to the LGA, local authorities have called for a variety of measures—for example, preferential rates from the Public Works Loan Board—that might help them to get viability in place for a number of their schemes. I mention that in particular because there are suggestions that the amount of mo…”

“Is it your understanding that projects that were viable a few years ago are now no longer viable, for a variety of reasons? It might be because interest rates have gone up, for example.”

“That takes a number of years, doesn’t it?”

“In order to achieve better value for money for local authorities, we would be encouraging them to do just that—to procure outside very expensive areas?”

“That is what is happening, isn’t it?”

“I am going to focus on procurement. Local authorities are encouraged to procure better and to get more value for money for the taxpayer, but what that really means, particularly for London authorities, is that they are being forced to look way outside London to procure—if they are lucky—in units of hundreds sometimes, …”

“So, Ms Healey, what is your message to local authorities—”

“Presumably, and hopefully, to borrow too, because while it takes a number of years to be able to add to the overall supply of housing, there are good examples of where local authorities have procured—they have bought property, essentially, whether it is in their own area or outside, and they have borrowed to do that. M…”

“Thank you, Chair. I declare that I am a vice-chair of the Local Government Association, having been a council leader for a number of years before I entered Parliament earlier this year. Thank you to the officials for joining us. I want to focus a bit more on value for money, which is why this Committee is looking at th…”

“Yes, and I am sure that you recognise that the point that I am making is not that people should be left out on the street; not only is that the wrong thing to do, but it goes against the statutory duty of the local authority. Given that it is £1.8 billion, taxpayers often remark that that money would be better spent on…”

“And not using taxpayers’ money.”