Can I welcome the Minister's statement? We have many people who are homeless and living on the street. Minister, we saw several of them after leaving St Mary’s Church in December after attending a concert for the homeless charity Crisis. However, we have far, far more people who are sofa surfing, living in overcrowded accommodation, and others living in homes that are cold and damp, being neither wind nor waterproof. I agree with the Minister that we have insufficient social housing. Does the Minister agree with me that we need substantially more council housing built, at the 1950s and 1960s level?

And we must also remember that in the 1950s and 1960s they used precast reinforced concrete in order to create part of them off-site. We also know, of course, that they brought in the Parker Morris standard, which produced a very high standard for social housing. Is the Minister interested in creating such a standard again, not necessarily Parker Morris, because that was of its time, but certainly a standard that all social landlords—housing associations and councils—have to build to? The 1950s and 1960s also saw a huge increase in council house building. What that did was it released low-cost housing that was previously privately rented for owner occupation. The problem for our people on relatively low wages to buy a house now is all those houses that are suitable for them have all been snapped up by landlords for £50,000, £60,000 in parts of my constituency, and rented out for £400, £500 a month. Sixty-thousand pounds, a £6,000 a year return—financially, for those who are doing it, it’s very good. But what it's done is it's stopping people who would have otherwise, on relatively normal wages, been able to buy a house in maybe Hafod or Landore or Plasmarl or St Thomas and now are unable to do it because landlords are snapping them up in large numbers. So, if we increase council housing, won’t that increase owner occupation, because the houses that are currently privately rented will then become back into owner occupation?

If I just finish with this, the place that I come from is Plasmarl—it’s gone through the whole stages, and other people have probably lived in areas very similar. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was almost all privately rented. Then, in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s it became owner occupied almost exclusively. And then, from the 1990s onwards, it’s been bought up by landlords—some of them living many, many miles away. There’s somebody living in Basingstoke who owns six houses in one street. That's removed the opportunity for local people to buy. So, isn't the answer increasing council housing, which is a win-win situation for low-cost private ownership and also making sure everybody has a decent house?