Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Danny Alexander

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Lady raises an important question. In this Parliament we are building more affordable homes than has been the case at any point in the past 20 years, and in the next Parliament we will be building even more. However, I do not think any of us should be complacent; we need to raise substantially the level of house building in this country. That is why I welcome the recommendation of Keith House and Natalie Elphicke on a housing finance institute. It is also why I set out around the autumn statement last year moves towards Government taking a direct commissioning role to ensure that we meet a 300,000 homes a year target. That will be piloted at the Northstowe development, which I encourage the hon. Lady to find out more about.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I declare an indirect interest, which is on record. Local authorities are at the sharp end of this Government’s failure to deliver the housing that the country needs, particularly affordable rented housing. Labour Plymouth is proactively doing what the Minister has just said—bringing forward land and building 1,000 homes. It has a view on the cap and about meeting the need. Greater concerns, however, surround the announcement of the starter home scheme, which will lead to a massive loss of affordable home building— developers get out of any requirement to do it and the local authority has no say. Can the Chief Secretary please tell the House what the impact assessment of that policy was and the impact on affordable rented homes?

[Danny Alexander]

The idea behind the starter homes scheme is precisely to offer homes at a discount to young people who want to get on the housing ladder. I would have thought that was an objective that everyone in the House would welcome. If the hon. Lady wants to look at social rented housing, in this Parliament—and continuing in the next Parliament—we have the highest annual rate of social house building than under the previous Government or for the past 20 years. During Labour’s 13 years in office, the number of social homes fell by 421,000; we have increased it by over 300,000.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Danny Alexander

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman should recognise that the top 10% make up the part of the population that is contributing most to dealing with the financial problems caused by the Labour party—the mess that we are trying to clean up—both in cash terms and in terms of a share of their incomes. He should welcome the fact that this Government are doing more than any previous Government to ensure that the wealthiest in society contribute most to sorting out the financial problems that he and his colleagues created.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

In the interests of transparency, will the Chief Secretary and his colleagues make public an impact assessment relating to child poverty before the welfare uprating Bill is laid before Parliament, not least because it would help us to understand the impacts of the cost of living and benefit freezes on low-paid working families?

[Danny Alexander]

The Department for Work and Pensions will, of course, publish an impact assessment in the normal way when the Bill is published.

The Economy

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Danny Alexander

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

It is transparent from the figures presented by the Office for Budget Responsibility that borrowing is higher than it forecast in 2010. If the hon. Gentleman was being fair-minded, he would also draw the House’s attention to the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which suggests that if we had continued with the path of spending set out by the previous Chancellor, we would be borrowing a further £200 billion —something that the country can ill afford.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

The OBR, which is independent and gives interesting forecasts, has said that the unemployment count is likely to rise in each of the next four years. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why that is?

[Danny Alexander]

The OBR has forecast that unemployment will be slightly higher next year and then fall in subsequent years. It also forecasts a rise in employment over that period. If the hon. Lady is looking for variances between reality and the OBR’s previous forecasts, it is fair to say that unemployment is now considerably lower than the OBR forecast a year ago. I hope that she welcomes that fact.

It is true that the OBR has lowered its growth forecasts and that the recovery is slower than we would have liked, but we are on the right road and the announcements that we made last week will help the country to make further progress along it. I should add that the OBR does not attribute the slower growth to the Government’s fiscal policy, but to external pressures from the eurozone and other parts of the world, and to the long-term impact of the financial crisis, especially on our banking system. If the Labour party wants to accept the OBR’s figures, it also needs to accept its analysis.

As the House knows, savings had to be found and we have decided to reduce departmental resource budgets by 1% next year and 2% the year after. We are confident that that will not impact heavily on front-line services. For example, according to the recently published “Digital Efficiency Report”, if all Departments continued to move their transactional services online and became digital by default, we could save £1.2 billion over the next two years. If all Departments moved to the property occupation benchmark of 10 square metres per person, they could save a further £300 million each year.

Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Danny Alexander

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I have visited companies around the country, in Scotland and England, that have created a significant number of new jobs and new apprenticeships, providing a significant increase in skills. That is the right way to go about it, and that is what we are trying to do with the increase in apprenticeships. I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome that. It is fair to say that the apprenticeships programme and the youth contract complement our Work programme, which is the biggest payment-by-results employment programme that this country has ever seen. The Work programme will provide personalised support to around 2.4 million people over the next five years, helping those most at risk of long-term unemployment.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

In Plymouth we are dependent on the public sector, and we are also a garrison town. As a result of the Government’s defence decisions, we are seeing a lot of young men, in particular, losing their positions in the services and becoming unemployed. Those coming out of the services are relatively highly skilled, putting pressure on the few vacancies that we have in Plymouth and cutting long-term unemployed young people out of the market. We have seen a 96% increase in the number of the long-term unemployed in Plymouth. What will this Government’s policies do for those young people? Absolutely nothing in Plymouth.

[Danny Alexander]

The youth contract, which I have mentioned, along with the Work programme and many other things that we are doing, will help the young people in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and I very much sympathise with the position that she has described.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Seabeck and Danny Alexander

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)]

I am grateful for the question. I agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, a similar point has been made by several trade union representatives in the very constructive talks that we are having at the moment, which will be going on over the next few weeks. In applying the increase in pension contributions, it is very important to protect the low-paid so as to minimise the risk of opt-out.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

Repossessions are rising and are up by 17% on the last quarter. That is very reminiscent, sadly, of the conditions under the Conservative Government in the 1990s and the cost and misery caused to families. Will the Chancellor, and perhaps the housing Minister, tell us what direct action he is going to take to support those affected and to restore confidence to the housing market?