Housing
Debate between John Healey and Chris Philp
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that the Government’s record on housing is one of five years of failure with rising homelessness, falling home-ownership, escalating rents, deep cuts in investment and the lowest level of house-building since the 1920s; further notes that the Spending Review and Autumn Statement will not result in the homes that young people and families on ordinary incomes need being built because it cuts the level of investment from that of 2010 and fails to prioritise genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy; notes Shelter Scotland's report of September 2015, Affordable Housing Need in Scotland, which states that overall house-building levels are well below their peak in 2007 and that the number of new social homes built has fallen by 44 per cent from 2010 to 2014; notes the widespread concern that the Government’s Housing and Planning Bill will lead to the severe loss of affordable homes, will be a let-down for aspiring home-owners, and will do nothing to help England’s private renters struggling with poor conditions and high renting costs; and calls on the Government to help families who are struggling with the cost of housing, including by building more affordable homes to rent and buy.
Above schools, wages, crime, foreign affairs and terrorism, people now place housing as their most pressing concern. It is fourth in Ipsos MORI’s latest long-running “Issues Facing Britain” survey. In all parts of this House, we know of the increasing pressure, frustration and sometimes despair that our constituents feel when a decent, affordable home to rent or buy is totally beyond them.
That is why we have called today’s debate on the Government’s record on housing. It is a truly shameful record, with five years of failure on every front. For the Housing Minister, who I know is a fan of social media, we could call it #fiveyearsoffailure. There have been five years of failure on homelessness—[Interruption.]—which, despite the laughter of Conservative Members, we all feel keenly at Christmas. Rough sleeping has increased by more than half in the past five years, while statutory homelessness is up by more than a third and is rising rapidly.
There have been five years of failure on home ownership. The rate of home ownership has fallen each and every year since 2010, and the total number of home-owning households in this country is now more than 200,000 fewer than when the Tories took control. It is young people who are being hit the hardest, with the number of homeowners under the age of 35 down by a fifth in the past five years.
There have been five years of failure on private rents. While incomes have stagnated, private rents on new lets have soared—up by £1,400 a year—since 2010.
There have been five years of failure on housing benefit costs, which rose by £4.3 billion in the last Parliament, despite punishing cuts such as the bedroom tax, even as housing investment was slashed.
Finally, there have been five years of failure on house building. The House of Commons Library has confirmed to me that the previous Government built fewer new homes than any peacetime Government since David Lloyd George’s in the 1920s.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
Speaking of house building, is not the most important statistic that, in the last year of the last Labour Government, on the right hon. Gentleman’s watch, there were 124,000 housing starts across the UK, whereas last year that figure had gone up to 165,000, which is a very impressive record? If he is so concerned about the topic, why did he not—
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between John Healey and Chris Philp
John Healey
The real weakness in the private rented sector is that people who rent their homes from private landlords have so little protection, so few rights, and so little basic redress when their landlord does not do what they should as part of their obligations.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I want to respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about affordability. The fundamental fact is that rents and house prices will be made more affordable by an increase in supply. That is the one thing that will decrease prices, and that is at the heart of the Bill.
John Healey
The hon. Gentleman is right, but perhaps he should address his remarks to the Secretary of State. In the previous Government the Tories built the smallest number of affordable homes in this country for more than two decades—10,920 affordable homes for social rent. That compares with three times that number in the last year of the last Labour Government, which, incidentally, was when I was Housing Minister.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between John Healey and Chris Philp
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to follow the very accomplished maiden speech of the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). It was a little light, lyrical relief after the Chancellor’s Budget statement. I am sure that the whole House wishes her well in following the many years of her predecessor and of her father in this House.
This was a Budget that was trailed by both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor last week as offering economic stability for the country and security for working people. Today, it was trumpeted by the Chancellor as a big Budget and a new settlement from a one nation Government. But this is a full fat Tory Government. They launch a frontal assault on the finances of many low income families. They change nothing of the structural weaknesses in the British economy. They deny the truth that weak growth has been the central problem of the past five years, and they disguise the fact that there are economic choices that could give us a different debate and a different direction for the future.
My right hon. and learned Friend, the Leader of the Opposition, said that there is always a temptation to oppose everything, and there is a lot to oppose in this Budget. Let me start by welcoming the action on the non-doms. Let me welcome the commitment fully to fund the Stevens plan for the NHS. Let me welcome the 2% commitment for defence spending; it matches what a Labour Government did in each and every one of our 13 years in power. Let me welcome also the new £9 national minimum wage for those over 25 in 2020, not least because I was on the National Minimum Wage Bill Committee and remember how hard it was fought and how strongly it was opposed by Conservative Members. I welcome their conversion to that cause.
The Chancellor likes to talk about growth figures for 2014. He did so again today in his statement. But one good year of growth does not absolve him from a poor economic record over his five years. Of all the G20 advanced countries in the world, only France, Italy and Japan have grown more slowly than the UK since 2010. The Chancellor has led the slowest economic recovery in Britain for over 100 years. Again, today, we saw the Office for Budget Responsibility revising down this year’s growth forecasts and keeping next year’s stable at a time when GDP per person is still lower than it was before the 2008 global banking crisis and recession hit, with most people still feeling their household finances getting worse, not better.
Why does that matter? Why is that our central problem? Weak growth means that there is less of our national income to go round, and productivity and wages are seriously depressed, which is why we have the worst and widest productivity gap in this country since 1992; the average earner is still £1,000 worse off in real terms than five years ago, and the minimum wage is worth less than it was in 2010. Weak growth means a more fragile economy—we are not saving enough, investing enough or exporting enough—which is why consumer debt is rising and we have the biggest balance of payments gap since records began in 1955.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
Growth in this country is currently running at 3%—the highest of any developed economy. That is hardly weak growth. Yes, it took time to recover from the mess the Labour Government left behind, but this economy is now roaring ahead.
John Healey
The OBR has today revised down the growth forecast for this year. It is not 3% but 2.4%. Over the five years—which is how we should judge the Chancellor, over his term—it has been one of the weakest growth rates in any of the major economies and the weakest recovery in over 100 years.