Today Yvette Cooper, the Housing Minister, made an important statement to the Commons on housing (read Hansard text).

In her speech Yvette talked about the need to build more housing, to be sensitive to the current flooding issues, to maximise sustainability and minimise the impact on the environment.  She said that by 2016 all new homes must be carbon neutral; that the role of the Environment Agency will be strengthened to make sensible decisions around flood risk; and she announced an increase in government susbidy for affordable housing from £5 billion to £8 billion.  I was very pleased that she announced the she will consult on a target of affordable housing in rural areas next year.

 I also had an outing in the Commons on the use of fingerprint technology in schools (read Hansard text).  The crucial section is around the concerns of parents:

I understand parents’ concerns if they believe that images of their children’s fingerprints are being taken and stored. That is a perfectly legitimate concern and I am sure that many of the parents to whom the hon. Gentleman referred are raising exactly that concern. It needs to be made clear to them that that is not the case: images of fingerprints are not being kept or stored. An algorithmic number is being generated from those fingerprints that cannot be reverse engineered.