Jim Shannon

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I thank the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for setting the scene so well. I will obviously bring a Northern Ireland perspective on the impacts of housing development. I want to be fairly positive about how we do things; it is important to understand what we are doing in Northern Ireland and for us to understand what is happening here across the water. Housing developments are foundations for social stability and improving the economy. I have a close working relationship with many of the developers back home, especially in Newtownards, where there is substantial development in Comber and Ballynahinch at present. There will always be difficulties. By their nature, housing developments bring imponderables to the local communities and associations. It is about how we address those things. I have often had meetings with the developers and local community groups to try to iron out some of the problems. We understand that the planners are independent; they sit between and make the decisions. Representations can also be made to planners as an individual. By and large, we have found those meetings to have gone well. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on healthy homes and buildings, which is committed to ensuring that homes are healthy, better environmentally and more efficient, and that they have green areas, playgrounds, car accessibility and charging points. All those are part of building somewhere that people can have as a family home for a lifetime, which is what we are trying to achieve. I make that point because there is a real need for social housing, which I want to illustrate. Housing should never be for private development alone. There has to be a social housing trend, portion or section. As of March to September 2025, there were 49,000 applicants on the Northern Ireland Housing Executive waiting list, with 38,000 in housing stress with immediate need. That gives an idea of the situation. I have been fortunate to have 400 social housing units built in my constituency, although that does not really reach the need. When we have developments, there needs to be an understanding that there must be some commitment from the developer for social housing needs within that. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts here on the mainland about what is being done to ensure opportunities for those who are more likely to rent a house than to buy one. The other issue in Northern Ireland, particularly in my constituency, is that house prices have risen more than in other parts of the United Kingdom. In my constituency of Strangford, house prices are among the highest in the whole of Northern Ireland. I can speak for my constituency, and the house price increase is shocking. The other issue I have found is that mortgages are quite clearly almost beyond the reach of those who want to buy a house. I know that the Government have committed to ensuring that there is help for first-time buyers, but in Northern Ireland I do not see much of that help. I ask the Minister, respectfully as always: what can be done to help first-time buyers to get on the first rung of the ladder? I bought my house back in 1987, which is when I finished it. When I tell Members how much I built it for, they will say, “My goodness me. Is that possible?” It cost £27,000 then and today it is worth over £325,000. That house is no longer mine—it is my brother’s; I have moved to the farmhouse—but the point is that there were opportunities to build a house at that price umpteen years ago. I remember very well that when I left school, there was a man who came to Ballywalter to live. He bought my father’s coal business, and I got to know him—I was only 16, so the couple were “Mr and Mrs”. He built his house—in 1971, so not yesterday—for £3,750. A four-bed house—my goodness. I remember saying to him—as we did in those young days, at 16 years old—“Mr Dowds, how will you ever be able to pay your house back?” How wrong was I? In 1971, the price of houses was much smaller, and if he had been able to buy two of them, he would definitely have been quids in.