Finchley and Golders Green MP RUDI VIS says the Government is putting the housing shortage in order with an ambitious building programme.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently made an important announcement on housing which can only be welcomed in the borough of Barnet. We have an ageing and growing population, with more people living alone. House prices have nearly trebled in the past 20 years, meaning that too many first-time buyers are not able to get a foot on the housing ladder.

The level of house building has increased to the highest rate since 1990, but we need to raise our ambitions much further. That means more market homes, more shared ownership homes and more social housing.

Key announcements include:

  • Increased annual house building target for 2016 from 200,000 to 240,000 new homes a year.
  • A Housing and Regeneration Bill to create a new homes agency to deliver more social and affordable housing by bringing together English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation.
  • New measures to examine more than 550 sites owned by the Government for housing development, with first indications suggesting a potential total of up to 100,000 homes.
  • Next steps for eco-towns and villages.
  • A Housing Green Paper, to be published next week by housing minister Yvette Cooper, with further steps on affordable housing.

The annual house building target for 2016 will rise to 240,000 homes a year. This will mean building 260,000 more homes than previously planned, resulting in two million new homes by 2016 and a further million by 2020.

It is vital that we build more affordable homes but also reduce their environmental impact. The Government will consult with councils on using the New Towns Act to enable 'eco towns' - with zero or low carbon housing - to be built more quickly. And we will continue robustly to protect the land designated as Green Belt.

Also, the new Housing Bill will propose bringing together English Partnerships with the Housing Corporation to create a new homes agency charged with bringing surplus public land into housing use to deliver more social and affordable housing and support regeneration. This will include new partnerships with local authorities, health authorities and the private and voluntary sectors to build more housing - made affordable by shared equity schemes - and more social housing responsive to individual needs.

The estimate is that 60,000 homes can be built on brownfield land currently owned by local authorities, and the Government will look at ways for local councils to set up new joint ventures to use their land to support more affordable homes.

But the Shadow Cabinet is opposing increased housing everywhere. Francis Maude, speaking out against house building, wrote on his website: "Many people have wrongly assumed that the Conservative Party is now backing John Prescott's plans for massive house building in the South East. Nothing could be further from the truth."

The Conservative-run South East Regional Assembly is the only regional assembly proposing a cut in the level of house building in the South East, rather than an increase. And in Tory-run Barnet, they continue to fail to deliver enough affordable housing. On one estate in Finchley and Golders Green they are advocating the removal of 50 rented social housing units without any proposals to re-provide. This is a net loss we can ill afford.

Ming Campbell recently launched the new Liberal Democrat housing policy, saying:"I am proposing the UK's most ambitious home-building programme in over a quarter of a century - 100,000 new social, low-cost and affordable houses every year to benefit Britain's most vulnerable citizens."

Let us get on top of the housing problems.