The Affordability Crisis in housing is also a housing benefit crisis.

Does not that make for the sort of Affordability Crisis that my hon. Friend describes?

It will further deepen the Affordability Crisis in many areas.

My constituents face a Crisis of Affordability, overcrowding and homelessness.

Secondly, the report makes it clear that there is no Crisis of Affordability.

The Government are ducking their responsibility for tackling the Affordability Crisis in housing, and my hon. Friend was right to point out that omission.

Research throughout the country shows that the Affordability Crisis is fundamentally caused by a lack of supply; however we dress it up, that is what it boils down to.

We are all here to assist them in resolving a Crisis in the Affordability of housing.

Obviously, that delights many commercial developers, for whom building urban extensions around affluent towns such as St. Albans and Cheltenham is more profitable than regenerating inner cities, providing struggling rural communities with small developments that might benefit them as they try to keep their schools and shops open, or providing more housing in lower-income counties such as Cornwall, where an Acute Affordability Crisis is being fuelled by second homes.

Given the growth in student numbers, changing demographic patterns - for example, the increase in single households - the Crisis of Affordability in the south-east and particularly in Oxford, and the acute shortage of social housing, it is clear that the regulation of private rented housing is a challenge of growing importance.

If we find either that households are in an Affordability Crisis or that landlords simply pull out of the housing benefit sector, particularly in those areas where the demand for private rented accommodation is greatest - that is, London, the south-east and some of our cities - we will have a severe problem and many the assumptions being made by the Government about savings are unlikely to be realised.

Without any question, we are seeing a growth in the private rented sector for all those reasons, including the Affordability Crisis and the lending pressures in the home ownership sector.

The one thing that we do not want to do, which I am sure the Government do not want to do either, is to create a Crisis of Affordability when someone hits hard times - if their income dips or is frozen, or even if they have a temporary period of unemployment - that tips them into homelessness, which is expensive and catastrophic, while we push a larger and larger proportion of them further and further away from the labour market.

There are tensions in this debate, and it is important to consider the need for housing, including the very real need for affordable housing, and the need to tackle the Affordability Crisis, but it is a mistake to think that growth will be a panacea for those problems, for a number of reasons.

It is too easy to criticise rail services and forget some of the major advances that have been made since privatisation, but at the crucial interface between train and customer, there is a growing Crisis of Affordability - on the personal level, rather than the national taxpayer level.

Will he ensure that any housing plan from this Government will concentrate on houses to deal with the Affordability Crisis, not on expensive houses in greenfield areas?

Although I would, as a Conservative Back Bencher, say that the Government have done a pretty good job and have a strong track record in many areas - not least Help to Buy, the new policy on housing association right to buy, and other areas - in some respects there is a Crisis of Affordability, which is a function of a successful economy.

Does he regret the credit crunch, the excessive lending and the poor regulation that caused the Affordability Crisis we have today?

That damages London's social mix, accelerating the exodus of poorer people out of our great city, and making the Affordability Crisis even worse.

When the hon. Lady talks about the Affordability Crisis, does she think that any part was played in that by the 200% increase in house prices between 1997 and 2008, as a result of a woefully badly regulated mortgage sector?

I make no apologies for returning to the issue of London, because that is where housing need is sharpest and where the Affordability Crisis is most severe.

So already we have examples of the failure of the housing market in London that is causing the Affordability Crisis.

As a result of the Affordability Crisis, many live in poor, overcrowded conditions.