Sunday with Niall Paterson Interview with Alok Sharma Housing Minister

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SUNDAY WITH NIALL PATERSON, SKY NEWS

NIALL PATERSON: We are joined now from Westminster by the Housing Minister, Alok Sharma. Mr Sharma, very good morning to you. Can we start please with Grenfell Tower? This week we have finally started to see the covers going up around the building, can you update us as to the process of rehousing, rehoming the 203 households left homeless?

ALOK SHARMA: Yes, of course. So we’ve had so far 111 households who have accepted to move into either temporary or permanent accommodation and of those 54 have already moved in. As you say there are 203 households in total, we’re working very hard to make sure, the council’s working very hard to make sure that they are rehoused but of course we want to make sure that we move at a pace that makes sense for individual households and that is why we’re working very closely with them, myself and the Home Office Minister Nick Hurd, we hold regular surgeries on an individual basis with households to see how we can help and assist and the council has obviously committed quite a lot of money to making sure that new permanent homes are brought online. We already have secured around 200 with the aim of 300 by Christmas.

NP: And you think that’s sufficient do you, almost half of the 203 households left homeless by the fire as yet have no other offer of accommodation other than a hotel room?

ALOK SHARMA: Well they have had offers of accommodation but obviously …

NP: Unacceptable offers.

ALOK SHARMA: What we’ve been very keen to do is to work with them to find a home that makes sense for them and we have to do this in a really sensitive way and so where people have said that they want to have further choices we have given those and we will continue to work with households until they are in a home that makes sense for them.

NP: Two days after the fire your boss, Sajid Javid, said that the government would do whatever it takes to improve safety in tower blocks, what are you doing?

ALOK SHARMA: Well in terms of testing of other blocks around the country, we have of course now had the testing of all tower blocks over 18 metres within the social housing sector and of course work is continuing within the private sector. We have set up an expert panel which has been providing advice and there is also now an independent review of building regulations that is taking place under Dame Judith Hackett and what we want to make sure as a result of this process is people feel safe in their homes. Ultimately it is a legal requirement for landlords to make sure that their tenants feel safe and we certainly want to make sure that happens.

NP: But the improvements to safety as identified in the aftermath of Grenfell, the bill for that falls on local authorities doesn’t it?

ALOK SHARMA: Well what we’ve said to local authorities is that we will work with them in terms of the financial issues. The starting point of course is for them to identify together with their local fire service what is essential work to make sure that people are kept safe. We have 31 local authorities that have approached us, we have asked them to provide further information and yes, of course, in terms of how they can fund this, they can look at surpluses within their housing revenue account, we can look to see whether it may be possible to move monies from their general reserves but at the end of the day, Niall, what we want to make sure is that people feel safe and we are committed to working with local authorities to makes sure that happens.

NP: But in the middle of that answer, Mr Sharma, was yes, essentially it is these local authorities that are going to have to pay for this and what the government has done in terms of doing ‘whatever it takes’ to improve safety in tower blocks is to allow local authorities to move numbers around on a spreadsheet.

ALOK SHARMA: Well local authorities of course have a legal duty to keep their tenants safe but we’ve been very clear, and as I’ve said we’ve got a conversation ongoing with 31 local authorities and yes, of course, we would look to see what they could do with the resources that are available to them but if that’s not possible we would look to see what more we could do.

NP: But it just doesn’t strike me that doing ‘whatever it takes’ is putting the onus on the local authority who already has a pretty stretched budget. I mean the money is going to have to come from somewhere, something is going to have to suffer as a result.

ALOK SHARMA: Well I think it’s really important that we do this in a collaborative way and the local authorities that have approached us are talking to a team we’ve set up within the Department for Local Government to have these very detailed discussions and I’m confident that at the end of this process we will end up with a position where local authorities are able to fund the essential works that are necessary to keep people safe.

NP: Since I started doing this show we decided to try and have a real focus on the record of whoever is in government, politicians should be judged on their record I’m sure you would agree, so in your mind since 2010 what is this government’s single greatest achievement when it comes to the problems in housing?

ALOK SHARMA: So since 2010 we have through the Affordable Homes Programme delivered 333,000 affordable homes, 240,000 of which are for rent. You have also had a big focus on Help to Buy and as you will have seen in the announcements at the party conference, another £10 billion for Help to Buy, helping another 135,000 people gain a foothold and own their own home which I think is a really good thing. Another £2 billion on top of the £7 billion for affordable homes and I think also very importantly Niall, this is not …

NP: Sorry Mr Sharma, the question was what is your greatest achievement since 2010 and you are talking about something that you announced the other week. Do you actually understand how far removed the idea of home ownership is for most people? It takes 19 years currently for the average family to raise the deposit for a home, the number of people forced to rent has soared by a million, the problems in the housing market have got worse since you got into government not better.

ALOK SHARMA: The issues in the housing market is just the fact that over many decades under successive governments we have not built enough homes and we put out our Housing White Paper in February which was titled ‘Fixing the Broken Housing Market’ and that’s precisely what we’re doing. You are asking me what we have done since 2010, we have with developers and the social sector made sure that a lot more houses are built but I absolutely agree with you, we need to be doing even more on this and as I was saying to you, at the conference we announced another £10 billion for Help to Buy which will help 135,000 homes, households and then £2 billion …

NP: Let’s focus on Help to Buy for a second Mr Sharma, as things stand even you would concede that there’s a problem in terms of supply in the housing market, yes?

ALOK SHARMA: We certainly need to build more houses, I’ll definitely acknowledge that.

NP: Absolutely, I’ll take that as a yes then so why on earth are we increasing demand? That’s what Help to Buy does.

ALOK SHARMA: With respect, that isn’t what Help to Buy does. What it does is it’s aimed at new build and if you look at the statistics, Niall, the average house that is bought under Help to Buy, the price has been £239,000, 53% of those who have bought under Help to Buy are first time buyers and over 80% of people who have bought using Help to Buy have said they would not have been able to afford to buy a home otherwise so what it has meant is additionality in the system and more homes built as a result of the Help to Buy scheme but can I go back to one other point that I don’t think the press have covered as much as perhaps should have happened which is the announcement on rent certainty from 2020 within the social sector. I can tell you that the National Housing Federation, their Chief Executive David Orr has talked about this as a watershed moment and I would encourage you to talk to the social housing sector who will tell you that the announcements that have been made are actually really good news for getting more social housing built in this country. We understand that we need to build more homes but we are targeting our efforts and we are making sure we do that and as you know on Tuesday the Prime Minister, who said it is going to be her mission to fix the broken housing market, is leading a task force, we are bringing together the big house builders, people in social housing, local authorities, to see what more we can do to turbo charge house building in our country.

NP: Let’s just be clear, there is of course a difference between housing that is affordable and social housing so let’s turn to that shall we. The Local Government Association says that by 2020 88,000 council properties will have been sold off, how many social homes were built last year?

ALOK SHARMA: The number of social homes built last year in terms of affordable homes was around …

NP: There is a difference between social and affordable. 144 council houses were built last year, by the end of this decade we are going to have lost nigh on 90,000 of them. Clearly we are not replenishing supply in terms of social housing quickly enough and do you know why that is? Because we go all the way back to 2010 when the government decided there would be no new money for social rent.

ALOK SHARMA: Well I would just say to you that the Affordable Home Programme which is now worth £9 billion, is delivering affordable rent, is also delivering intermediate rent, it’s allowing people to have different tenures so you can have shared ownership and staircase up to ownership, so I don’t accept the fact that the government hasn’t done enough but it is the case there is an extra £2 billion which has been made available and of course some of that will be for social housing, targeting areas of particular affordability or lack of affordability in the country.

NP: But can we just be absolutely clear about this, there is a difference isn’t there, between affordable housing and social housing and predominant in it is the idea that you actually pay less? I am just trying to find a degree of competence in the government’s record when it comes to the housing sector. Actually do you know what, there has been one area of significant growth when it comes to the housing sector and that’s unemployment, more than 4,000 people sleeping rough in 2016 … sorry, homelessness I should say, 4,000 people sleeping rough in 2016, an increase of 134% since you got into power and for 77,000 households including 120,000 children, currently housed in temporary accommodation. That’s your record isn’t it?

ALOK SHARMA: Well the record is that we have provided funding to build more homes across the country, we’ve made sure that people are able to afford to buy homes but look, I full accept that we need to be building more homes. What we said in the Housing White Paper is that we need to be delivering 215,000 homes a year. Last year a big jump from previous years, there were 190,000 net additions in the system but we need to be doing more and that means diversifying the housing market, making sure that we get the builders building at a faster rate. We do a lot more to support small and medium sized builders and we’re doing that through a £3 billion facility called the Home Building Fund, making sure that infrastructure is available which is what very many people want when new houses go up in their area, £2.3 billion being made available for that and of course also assisting the social housing sector, which is precisely what we’ve done and I go back to the point that what David Orr has said, that this was a watershed moment in terms of the announcements that were made at the party conference.

NP: I suppose the takeaway that many people will have is that much of what you have just said – that we need to do more in terms of house building, we need to do more in terms of making sure that the properties that are coming onto the market are affordable, all of this could be said in 2010 as much as 2017 but while we have you on I do want to talk about Brexit. Why is the government refusing to release those impact statements, the research that they carried out into what effect Brexit would have on the various parts of country?

ALOK SHARMA: Well what I say to you Niall, is on the general point about Brexit is that we are all united behind the Prime Minister’s vision for the UK outside the European Union, she stated that at the Lancaster House speech, she restated that at the Florence speech and …

NP: Why won’t you publish the impact statements and say exactly what will happen to the country in the Civil Service’s assessment after Brexit?

ALOK SHARMA: Well the Civil Service of course does all sorts of assessments but what we have to look at is when people voted – look I voted to remain in the European Union but I was very clear at the time that if in the country people decided to go another way, which is what they did, then we should respect that and so what we want to make sure is that working with our friends and partners in the EU, we deliver a deal which makes sense for them and makes sense for us and I am confident that we will get there.

NP: I’m going to push you again on this, why wouldn’t you publish? If the research shows that there will be little or no change, you can publish. If the research shows that there will be a significant negative effect to parts of the country, surely you should publish.

ALOK SHARMA: As I said to you Niall, there are all sorts of reports and works that are done internally within the Civil Service looking at a whole range of things but the key focus has to be delivering on the mandate that the British public have given us which is for us to exit the European Union, that is precisely what we are going to be doing and we want to do it on a basis that makes sense for us and the EU.

NP: But it looks like you are trying to hide something. Similarly with the legal advice surrounding Article 50, whether or not we could detrigger, untrigger, revoke Article 50, why aren’t you publishing that?

ALOK SHARMA: Well we can have these discussions backwards and forwards but what I would say to you is that I think the key focus for this government has to be to get a good deal for the UK as we leave the European Union and that is precisely what the Prime Minister and other Ministers are determined to do. The Prime Minister will be again in Europe meeting leaders next week and I’m sure we will see progress.

NP: And Minister, whilst we have you, a story this morning in the papers suggesting that GPs will soon be asking us about our sexuality, what’s your view?

ALOK SHARMA: I’m sorry I didn’t catch the question.

NP: Apologies, I will repeat it. There was a story this morning suggesting general practitioners will be asking their patients about their sexuality, what do you make of it?

ALOK SHARMA: Well I haven’t seen the detail of that proposal but what I would say is where GPs need information on a private basis about their patients then of course they should have that but I would have to look at these proposals to give you any further comment, as I said I’ve not seen them in detail.

NP: Indeed, Alok Sharma, many thanks for being with us.

ALOK SHARMA: Thank you Niall.