"Decent homes should be a right" - John Leech MP

12.24.44pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 24th May 2007

John Leech MP has been campaigning for more homes for local people

Manchester Lib Dem MP, John Leech is backing calls for the resumption of social house building as the number of people on the housing waiting list continues to reach new highs.

There are 27,000 on the housing waiting list in Manchester alone and the number is growing by the day. According to recent government forecasts, Britain will need to build 5 million more homes by 2027.

"It is disgraceful that one in seven children in our country are either homeless or are growing up in inadequate accommodation," said John Leech. "One of the major failings of this Labour government has been to deal with the growing housing crisis in our country."

"Clearly, social houses are not the only solution but they are part of the answer. We need to increase joint-ownership schemes as well ensuring that the owners of the thousands of empty homes across the country are made to either make use of them or sell them on."

"The Labour council have tried their hardest to make the situation worse by ensuring that land is sold off to the highest bidder," John continued. "This means we end up with hundreds of unoccupied luxury flats for people who aren't even local while people who have lived here all their lives are left to wait for another year."

<<ENDS>>

Notes to editors:

John Leech MP has signed Early Day Motion 1456, the text of which is set out below.

RESUMPTION OF THE BUILDING OF COUNCIL HOUSES

14.05.2007

Russell, Bob

That this House welcomes the announcement by Westminster City Council that it plans to start building council houses, after a break of almost 30 years, to help ease chronic overcrowding and homelessness; notes that in the last 10 years, on average, each year fewer than 500 council dwellings were built in England and Wales, in contrast to the peak years during the third quarter of the 20th century when annually around 200,000 local authority homes were constructed; believes that only a resumption of building, on a meaningful scale, of new council dwellings can tackle the increasing levels of overcrowding and homelessness across the country; and calls on the Government to provide the encouragement and resources to enable every local authority to follow the lead shown by Westminster City Council.