Housing continues to be a major problem across the whole country but especially here in Hampshire where house prices are high and land expensive.

Too many young people too often must move away from family and friends because they cannot afford to live in places like Meon Valley and Winchester - one of the most expensive locations in the country. Affordable housing is then a big issue.

Land costs and planning are obvious hurdles but there is also the issue of land banking and incredibly there are around one million planning permissions across the UK that have not yet been built. If they were, the housing shortage would be dealt with and that is frustrating.

To help, councils across the country are now able to buy cheaper land to help build thousands more social and affordable homes. The idea is to improve the long-term supply of good-quality housing. 

Councils can buy land for development through Compulsory Purchase Orders without paying inflated so-called ‘hope value’ costs. In many places land is unused and it is a good idea to try and access it as cheaply as possible so those houses can be built. It is often brownfield sites and that helps because many people do not want to see building on the greenbelt.

Other measures will be needed to ensure we have the right housing in the right places but empowering councils is a good move and hopefully will lead to more affordable homes.

Many Hampshire Chronicle readers will know that I am passionate about education, that I sit on the education committee in parliament and I was a lay Ofsted inspector.

The committee recently recommended that single-phrase school inspection judgments such as excellent, good or inadequate be reformed into something a little more humane and instructive. It came after the suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry last year following an Ofsted inspection where her school was deemed to be inadequate.

I will be making the case to the education secretary to change the wording when I next see her. I believe it is time to modernise how Ofsted communicates its findings. I am a big supporter of its inspections but I recognise that times change.

In other education news the government has started a consultation on lifting the 50 per cent cap on faith school places. The proposals would allow high performing faith school providers to be able to create more school places. Lifting the cap will also encourage more schools to join strong multi-academy trusts around the country. There is no doubt academy schools have improved education in many areas.

The Church of England, Catholic Church and other faith school providers also have a strong track record in delivering high quality education.

There seems to be some continuing confusion about the new Winchester following the boundary changes. The Meon Valley seat completely disappears with those changes at the next election. It is split four ways with roughly 25% of it into the new Winchester seat, around 45% into the new Fareham and Waterlooville seat, 24% into East Hampshire and 6% into the new Hamble Valley seat.

I was only interested in standing in a seat that I know well so when Steve Brine announced his retirement, I put my name forward. As a standing MP I had the right to go forward and be selected unopposed.

Flick Drummond

Meon Valley MP