PARLIAMENT has heard the “grave” extent of Cornwall’s housing crisis in a debate called by St Ives’ Lib Dem MP Andrew George.

The Cornish MP sparred with the new Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook on issues affecting residents in the Duchy, where as many as 27,000 people are on the housing waiting list.

Summing up the debate, which took place on Monday, September 9, Mr George said of the minister: “He accepts that extreme housing problems call for bold measures. I furnished him with a dossier of material before the debate. So he understood that, under the Conservatives, more than £500-million of taxpayers’ money was granted to holiday homeowners – through various tax loopholes and grants – in Cornwall. He was receptive and agrees that the priority should be to invest in affordable homes for locals.

“I challenged his government’s commitment to housebuilding targets. Cornwall has been one of the fastest growing places in the United Kingdom in the last 60 years – nearly trebled its housing stock – yet the housing problems of locals have got significantly worse. I asked him to give Cornwall the devolved power to direct planning policy to meet need rather than developers’ greed. He was not as receptive. So, there’s a battle ahead.”

Mr George, former chief executive of the Cornwall Community Land Trust charity which works with communities to deliver affordable housing, told MPs in the House of Commons: “It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to raise the rather grave issue of providing affordable housing in the housing emergency-ridden communities of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

“In the present local plan for Cornwall, covering 2010 to 2030, the house building target is 52,500. The Government propose to increase those projections under their new formula from 2,707 properties per annum to 4,454. I urge the Minister to allow places such as Cornwall to be granted devolved powers to vary the way in which we achieve what needs to be done in our local environment: not simply to give us house building figures but to set targets to reduce housing need.”

Truro and Falmouth’s Labour MP Jayne Kirkham responded to Mr George’s opening speech: “As he said, about 27,000 people are on Cornwall’s housing waiting list, and about 800 are in temporary and emergency accommodation. Many of them are families with young children, who are placed in caravan parks and holiday homes that are up to an hour and a half or two hours away from their support networks, their schools, their jobs and where they live. This is really affecting community cohesion, upsetting families and causing real hardship.

“The council is struggling with the need, and the cost is vast. It is providing bunk cabins in council car parks for people to live in as emergency and temporary accommodation, which is very difficult.

“So many people in Cornwall are now living in their vans, because they simply have nowhere else to go. I am finding that families are moving into emergency accommodation, and that the single people who were becoming homeless when I was first a councillor in Cornwall are now living in their cars. The situation has become really dire.”

Anna Gelderd, the newly elected Labour MP for South East Cornwall, also spoke. She said: “In the constituency I represent, local residents are being priced out and we don’t have the homes that we need. Earlier this summer, an elderly couple from Torpoint in my constituency, were forced to live apart for more than four months, both in their 90s, after an accident at their own home left one in hospital and a lack of suitable housing allowed them not to live together.

“Does [the minister] agree with me that we need action on second homes so local people, such as this couple from Torpoint, can benefit from more of the housing being built?”

Mr Pennycook said he was sorry to hear of the Torpoint couple’s situation and that the Government recognises that more needs to be done on second homes.

The minister finished the debate by saying “there is clearly a fierce clarity of purpose on both sides of the House in respect of meeting housing need across the county, and I assure all members present that the Government are resolved to do what is necessary to ensure that that can happen.

“As we have heard, the housing crisis in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is acute. Eye-watering house price-to-earnings ratios are putting home ownership out of the reach of most local people; an overheated and shrinking private rented sector is placing a severe strain on local economies as well as families and communities; and social housing waiting lists are growing steadily.

“I recognise that second homes and short-term lets are not the sole causes of those pressures, but none of them can be properly understood without taking into account the sharp increase in the numbers of second homes and short-term lets in the county over recent years.”

He disagreed with Mr George’s points about the Labour government’s housing targets.

“I acknowledge [his] concerns about the introduction of mandatory housing targets, and I appreciate that he made a nuanced argument, but I am afraid that I am unconvinced by it.

“The fact that the distribution of homes in his constituency is creating significant challenges for the communities he represents is not, in my view, an argument against ensuring that sufficiently ambitious targets are in place to boost housing supply. Rather, it is an argument for making sure that local planning authorities have the full set of tools they need to manage those distributional challenges, and to plan for development in line with their targets in a way that meets local need.”