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Housing: Low Incomes

Volume 457: debated on Monday 5 March 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment she has made of the merits of using community land trusts to increase access to property ownership by lower-income householders. (122354)

Community land trusts are an interesting and promising new option for delivering affordable housing and we are keen to explore whether they will allow for more households on lower incomes to access and sustain home ownership.

The Housing Corporation and English Partnerships are working with a number of potential Community land trust schemes with the aim of establishing some viable pilots. The Housing Corporation is currently appraising several specific schemes and expect some of those to be up and running later this year. These will help us to test different mechanisms and decide which approaches provide the greatest advantages for lower income households.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about expenditure on affordable housing in the next comprehensive spending review. (123885)

[holding answer 27 February 2007]: The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has had and will continue to have wide ranging and regular discussions with the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury about preparations for the 2007 comprehensive spending review.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many people from (a) the London borough of Havering and (b) Romford constituency are taking part in the key worker living programme. (124925)

Since its launch in 2004, we have helped 142 key workers into a home in the London borough of Havering under the key worker living programme. The aim of the key worker living scheme is to help front-line public-sector workers live within reasonable travelling distance of their place of work: the Housing Corporation does not collect data on where beneficiaries previously lived, but does collect data on where they purchase properties. Figures are collected at local authority level and are not available on a constituency basis.