Speeches by Reed.

“First of all, thank you for that kind welcome. It is a very exciting role to find myself in, particularly given my history in local government. In this role, I very much see myself as building on the work of my predecessor Angela Rayner, who delivered some real change in this brief. When the Prime Minister asked me to …”

“A lot of those are in London as well. I have had the registered providers into the Department, as well as the developers, to talk some of this through. There were flexibilities in the London stimulus package that would make it possible for more of those units to be bought. We want to get to a point where the developers…”

“We should certainly listen to people in that organisation who have direct experience to see how we can make the shared ownership schemes work better for people. Clearly, I know people, as I am sure some of you around the table do, who have benefited from shared ownership, which enabled them to get that first foot on th…”

“You have to get a mixed environment. There will always be a role for shared ownership. For some people, it is the right kind of tenure, and it gives them the chance, as it clearly gave you, to get that first foot on the housing ladder. We are looking at lifetime ISAs and mortgage guarantees as well. There are other sch…”

“The social and affordable homes programme is £39 billion over 10 years, which is the biggest amount that has been made available for this purpose in a generation. Of those homes, 60% will be available at social rent. The other 40% will be affordable. Within that, about 30% will be shared ownership. Dame Sarah Healey: T…”

“That is right.”

“To be clear, we are progressing work. There are no decisions.”

“On your point about housing targets, it is better to have housing targets than, like the previous Government, no housing targets. That is one of the reasons we are facing a housing crisis across the whole country. It is why temporary accommodation doubled; it is why rough sleeping doubled; it is why young people cannot…”

“On your first point, we want to make sure that we have an approach to housing targets that is consistent and fair. We know we need to engage with local authorities, including Milton Keynes, to make sure that we are working with what is feasible, what they want to achieve and what the community’s aspirations are for the…”

“We are progressing work on all 12 sites that were identified. It may be that there could be more. There were other areas where local leaders were very keen to promote the idea of a new town and they were not recommended in the 12 that the taskforce identified, but that does not mean that nothing is possible in those lo…”

“The taskforce completed its work and identified 12 potential sites to proceed as locations for new towns. Of those that the taskforce identified, there were three that looked the most promising. We are now going ahead with the strategic environmental assessment on all those sites. I can make more detailed announcements…”

“I am a bit wary, Chris, of pre-empting announcements that are properly those of my successor in DEFRA.”

“I am going to refer back to my answer to a previous question. Looking at the environmental regulators is primarily the role of DEFRA. Dan Corry’s report is what I commissioned when I was in that role and what I was following. I know my successor has taken that up. Dan Corry is now a member of her departmental board. Th…”

“Yes.”

“That is right.”

“Yes, I saw you in the corridor.”

“We would certainly want to look at that. I am not sure about mandating because there will be different schemes and applications coming forward and they will all be of a different nature. It is very difficult to say, hard and fast, that they will all apply a particular construction method. Where that is feasible, where …”

“London had specific challenges. The London package was designed to address them. That came from the conversations that I conducted with developers, the GLA and housing organisations. It was very difficult to see how you could make schemes viable in London without temporarily lowering affordability. Perversely and count…”

“Thank you.”

“They will be non-statutory. In the speech that I just referred to, I will also be covering what we are going to do around NDMPs. Part of that will be what you do around railway stations, but there are other opportunities where we can help to get development moving more quickly. If we are going to meet the 1.5 million t…”