Twyford Phil: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 05 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:641. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]7.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū)to the Minister for Social Housing: Does she agree with the Dominion Post that “The Government’s social-housing plan is unclear not only in its details but in its fundamental aims”; if not what are the Government’s plans and fundamental aims?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister)on behalf of theMinister for Social Housing: No I disagree with it. Our aims are first to make it easier for more people to get into social housing; secondly to provide a better pipeline that enables them to move on from social housing when they cease to need it; and thirdly to ensure that the Government’s large landholdings in our metropolitan areas can contribute to the longer-term problem of limited supply of affordable housing for all New Zealanders not just those who need social housing.Phil Twyford: Who is correct on how many they will sell: Bill English and Nick Smith when they have talked about up to 20 percent of the stock—Hon Dr Nick Smith: We said that a year ago.Phil Twyford: —John Key—are you missing me Nick?Hon Dr Nick Smith: We said that a year ago.Phil Twyford: I will get back to you. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is not helpful for interjections to come from my right-hand side as Mr Twyford is asking his question. He can start his question again.Phil Twyford: Thank you. Who is correct on how many they will sell: Bill English and Nick Smith when they have talked about up to 20 percent of the stock; John Key when he said: “less than the numbers that have been bandied around”; herself when she said it could be thousands; or David Zussman from the Monte Cecilia Housing Trust who says: “We’re told 25 percent seems on the high side and the next breath it’s ‘a few houses’ or is it a thousand or thousands? We’ve no idea … There’s too many gaps too many guesses.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member will just have to wait and see because as we have all pointed out the Government is yet to make decisions about that particular number. But that is going to be much less important than the other number which will be the number of income-related rent subsidies available and they will be increasing. So for instance if we want to house 1000 extra people under Labour’s model it costs roughly half a billion and takes 5 years because you have got to build the State houses. Under our model it will cost around $12 million to $14 million and if the houses are available we can do it within a matter of months. So the number of income-related rent subsidies available will matter more than the number of houses owned by the Government.Phil Twyford: Who is correct on whether the money will be reinvested in social housing: Bill English when he said: “there’s not much point in rebuilding stock with it … it could go into the consolidated account.”; Bill English when he said: “Certainly for the foreseeable future as much as we can.”; or John Key when he said: “The better question to ask is: ‘Will it be used to develop new social housing?’ and the answer to that is ‘maybe’.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As the member has pointed out there are a lot of opportunities to use any money from sales but I would say to the member that the most important piece of money is going to be what is available to provide for more people in serious housing need. I know that Labour is having trouble understanding this but it will no longer be dictated by the number of State houses owned by the Government. We will be able to determine independently of the number of State houses owned by the Government how many people we are willing to assist. And of course any money we can apply from the sale of State houses to housing affordability and social housing improvement we will.Phil Twyford: Does she agree with the Prime Minister that the Government’s social housing reforms will not amount to subsidising private landlords because “the only people who can get income-related rents are community housing providers or Housing New Zealand.”; if so why has the social housing unit left the criteria open to for-profit community housing providers and for community housing providers to utilise private landlords rather than owning their own social houses?Hon Dr Nick Smith: Housing New Zealand does it now.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes as the former Minister of Housing said Housing New Zealand Corporation does that now. It uses so-called private landlords and of course the member may not be aware but the Government spends $1.2 billion a year on a thing called the accommodation supplement. I do not know whether the Labour Party knows about that but that is all paid pretty much without exception to private landlords. I know that the Labour Party is against that but I can tell you that the 300000 families who receive it are somewhat in support of it.