7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Housing

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:30 pm on 9 January 2019.

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Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 5:30, 9 January 2019

Well, I thought I was in some agreement with the Member on this, and in particular, the Caerphilly LDP and going and ripping that up and looking to start again, and some of the proposals for building on Caerphilly mountain and how those would be dependent on car use and the need to link up with what was happening in the Cardiff LDP. I thought that was all sensible and I thought that there was a degree of agreement between us within that.

But certainly, in the numbers in Caerphilly, the building has been less than these big increases we've seen in Torfaen and Newport, which I wanted to emphasise. And I think they relate to the ending of the Severn tolls. We will see economic growth because the Severn tolls have gone, but also, the house building, in turn, is helping to drive that economic growth. You're going to say, 'Oh, but there was more housing equity', but actually, that's really important. If the value of people's houses goes up, one of the things that leads to is substantially more business formation and business growth. And, when I look at the levels of new business formation or entrepreneurship in south-east Wales and compare that to what I saw before in south-east England, I don't believe that there is a difference in the entrepreneurialism of the individuals or even necessarily that much in the skills that people bring to those businesses. The big difference is the availability of housing equity, and we have some good stuff from the Wales Development Bank, but overall, private sector banks find it very difficult to lend to small, upstart businesses where they don't have security. Yet, if the directors are in a position to give a personal guarantee of housing equity, then there is a lot more business lending, which drives a lot more economic growth through small businesses, and that's something I think we should welcome and support that house building and what it's doing for the overall economy, driven by south-east Wales. Let's encourage it.