Jeremy Corbyn!
Thank you Mr.Speaker. I want to thank all those that took part in of an enormous democratic
exercise in this country, which concluded with me being the leader of the Labour party
and leader of the opposition. I think we can be very proud of the numbers of people who
engaged and took part in all those debates. I've taken part in many events around the
country and had conversations with many people about what they thought about this place,
our parliament, our democracy and our conduct within this place. And many told me they thought
that Prime Minister's question time was too theatrical, that parliament was out of touch
and too theatrical and they wanted things done differently, but above all, they wanted
their voice heard in parliament. So I thought, my first Prime Minister's question time, I'll
do it in a slightly different way and i'm sure the Prime Minister can absolutely welcome
this as he welcomed this idea in 2005. But something seems to have happened to his memory
during that period. And so I sent out an email to thousands of people and asked them what
questions they would like to put to the Prime Minister and I received 40000 replies. Now
there isn't time to ask 40000 questions today, and our rules limit us to 6 and so, I would
like to start with the first one which is about housing. two and half thousand people
emailed me about the housing crisis in this country. And I ask one from a woman called
Marie, who says:
"What does the government intend to do with the chronic lack of affordable housing and
extortionate rents charged by some private sector landlords in this country?" Prime Minister...
Prime Minister!
Well first of all Mr.Speaker, can I congratulate the honourable gentlemen on his resounding
victory in the Labour leadership election. Can I welcome him to the front bench and to
these exchanges, I know we will have many strong disagreements i'm sure between us at
these exchanges but where we can work together in the national interest, we should do so
and I wish him well in his job. If we are able to change Prime Minister's questions
and make it a more genuine exercise in asking questions and answering questions, no one
would be more delighted than me. I actually felt, I felt last week when we discussed a
substantial issue with substantial questions and proper answers was good for our house,
good for our democracy and so I welcome it. Now let me answer very directly Marie's question
because we do need to see more affordable housing in our country, we delivered 260000
affordable housing units in the last parliament, we built more council houses in our country
in the 13 previous years had been managed but I recognize much more needs to be done.
That means carrying on with our reform of the planning system, it means encouraging
the building industry to come up with innovative schemes like starter homes, but above all,
it means continuing to support the aspirations of people to be able to afford their own home
which is where help to buy and schemes like that come in. And I say to the honourable
gentlemen, we won't get Britain building unless we keep our economy going.
Jeremy Corbyn!
I thank the Prime Minister for that answer and I thank him for his commitment we're going
to try and do Prime Minister's question time in a more adult way then we have done in the past.