amendment of the law

Alun Cairns Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I welcome the efforts that my hon. Friend has described. I said a moment ago that this is a responsibility for all of us, but I cannot promise to resist the temptations presented by the Secretary of State, given what he had to say.

Ministers do not want to talk about housing starts, because the figures are bad, so instead they want to focus on completions. Let us have a look at them. The facts are pretty stark. The number of completions in England in each of the first two years of the coalition Government was lower than in any one of the 13 years of the Labour Government. In other words, we completed more homes in every one of those years than the Government have managed in either year since they were elected. Indeed, the Secretary of State has the dubious distinction of presiding over the lowest level of completions by any peacetime Government since the mid-1920s. That is some achievement. No wonder the construction industry has been so hard hit. Eighty thousand construction workers are out of work, and output has fallen by 8.2%, contributing a great deal to the absence of growth in the British economy. The rate of home ownership has fallen, and there are 136,000 fewer home owners than when the Government came to power. That is hitting the youngest hardest, because the average age of a first-time buyer is now 37.

Official statistics from the Secretary of State’s Homes and Communities Agency show that affordable housing starts collapsed in the last financial year by 68%; homelessness and rough sleeping are up by a third since the election; the number of families with children and/or a pregnant woman housed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for six weeks or more has risen by over 800% since the coalition came together; and 125 councils have had families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for six weeks or more. As private rents have continued their relentless rise and incomes are squeezed, more people in work have to claim housing benefit to help them pay the rent.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I am struggling with an inconsistency on the Labour Benches. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), said that housing was essentially a private sector operation and that the public sector need not be involved in it.

[Hilary Benn]

I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that if he cares to look at the record of the Labour Government, he will see that 2 million more homes were built during those 13 years, 500,000 of which were affordable homes that we provided, and 1 million more families were able to buy their own home. That stands in comparison to the Government’s miserable record over the past two years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

In the limited time available to me, I intend to explain why I welcome the measures in the Budget, and also why I consider the views of Opposition Members to be highly inconsistent.

Given the lack of growth in our largest trading nations, it is easy to understand why the Chancellor was left with so little room for manoeuvre. After all, growth projections in Germany and the United States—just two examples—have been downgraded. We need to recognise the context of the present position: the scale of debt inherited in 2010, the major issues that confront the eurozone, the local impact of the high prices of commodities such as oil, gas and food and the inflationary pressures that that involves, and the lack of growth in other nations.

[Oliver Colvile]

Did not the last Labour Government create a structural budget deficit as long ago as 2001?

[Alun Cairns]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall say more about Labour’s inconsistency later.

All the issues I have mentioned have had impacts on the living standards of families throughout the United Kingdom. Decisions such as these are difficult to take, but they must be seen in context.

What I welcome most is the Chancellor’s drive to create the most competitive of economic environments. That will attract investment, and will also continue to encourage the private sector in the UK to invest. The further reduction in corporation tax goes to the heart of a sustained economic recovery, and underlines the economic imbalance that we inherited. The 20% corporation tax rate means that we now compare exceptionally well with our major competitors. In Germany the rate is 29%, in France it is 33%, and in Italy it is 31%. Those are material considerations for anyone who is thinking about where to invest, and for any United Kingdom investor who is thinking of expanding. We should also bear in mind the uncompetitive position that we inherited. The increase in employers’ national insurance rates led to the term “jobs tax”, with which we are now familiar.

The ultimate judgment will come in the grades that the World Economic Forum confers on the competitiveness of the various nations. Having ranked fourth in 1997, we were dragged down to 13th by the Labour party. At last, however, we have recovered enough to rank eighth—and that happened before the announcement of the welcome changes in the Budget. Neither the 20% corporation tax rate nor the employers’ national insurance relief were taken into account.

Other Budget measures that I welcome include the “help to buy” mortgage guarantee schemes. That is an area of policy in which no Government would ideally become involved. However, bearing in mind the context I referred to earlier, the Chancellor had little choice other than to get involved. The scheme will provide a welcome boost to the construction and retail industries and various elements of the service sector, and it will make a significant difference to many families who want to buy their own home.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

On “help to buy”, does the hon. Gentleman think it morally correct that millionaires can get support to buy second homes?

[Alun Cairns]

The hon. Gentleman recognises, I hope, that the economy needs to be kick-started. He always refers to the changes to the highest income tax rates and the 5% reduction that will take place next week. However, I remind him that the rate Labour introduced was temporary. If so, when was Labour planning to abandon it? The ultimate question that Labour Members have to answer is, will they reintroduce for the next general election the 50% rate that was in their manifesto? I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wants to intervene again. Obviously, he does not, because they are not prepared to say whether they will commit to doing that.

I am pleased that the homebuy scheme will be limited to three years because as I said, it is not a policy area that any Government would want to be involved with in perpetuity, because of some of the risks that have been highlighted. It simply is not a public sector initiative that any Government would want to undertake all the time.

If those who want to criticise such initiatives are to have any credibility, they need to offer some form of alternative. It is hard to believe the audacity shown by some Labour Members. Less than three years ago, they were responsible for, or were the loudest cheerleaders for, the policies that led us into this position, giving this country the most debt-ridden, overspent, unbalanced economy in modern history. Manufacturing had declined by more than 20%, public sector job numbers had ballooned and we had the highest debt level of any G20 nation. I notice that the Labour Members who were seeking to intervene and criticise earlier are now staring at their boots.

These initiatives are aimed at promoting growth and freezing or cutting spending. [Interruption.] The Labour critics really need to come up with some alternatives. Until they have accepted their responsibility, they will lack credibility and no one will listen. Even Lord Mandelson recognised that just last week. They came up with some sort of plans in the past. Spending the 4G auction money on 100,000 new affordable homes was one option; a two-year freeze on stamp duty was another. However, that money has already been used—on the national debt—so I look forward to hearing their alternatives.

This Budget will make a difference to families, and help to kick-start the housing sector and to make Britain’s economy much more competitive. I look forward to hearing the solutions that Labour Members will try—