Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The average price of a house in Hammersmith and Fulham is £653,000. The average price of a flat is £493,000. If costs £770 a week to rent a three-bedroom house, and a one-bedroom flat costs £335 a week. At the same time, according to the most recently published census data, 45% of my constituents live in some form of overcrowding, while 62% live in some form of deprivation. Market rents are four or five times what social rents are, so one can imagine how my constituents greeted the Chancellor’s most recent, desperate attempt to do something with the economy—fuel a house price boom. This is what the Financial Times said about it today:

“The government is encouraging people to leverage themselves up to the hilt in order to buy what is already likely to be overpriced property and, as a result of this policy, is likely to become still more so. This is irresponsible enough. But worse, the government will probably…find itself permanently using its balance sheet to support risky housing finance, as the US has done.”

There is indeed a revolution in housing, welfare and planning in this country, but it has very little to do with the Chancellor’s tinkering earlier this week. It is the actions of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who opened today’s debate, and the Department for Communities and Local Government, along with many Conservative councils, that have made rents unaffordable for 540 households in my constituency on the local housing allowance. Some 2,700 households will be affected by the bedroom tax from next week, and as soon as the benefit changes come in another 800 households will be affected.

[Michael Ellis]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Slaughter]

We have probably heard enough from the hon. Gentleman today. His temporary attendance in the debate and his whipped speech did not do him any credit; I do not think we want any more of that drivel, frankly—[Interruption.] If I need another minute, I might give way later.

The 1% cap and the restriction on crisis loans will make my constituents more dependent on payday loans or pawnbrokers. That is no way to solve the economic crisis that the Government have got themselves into.

House building is at an all-time low. According to figures from the TUC, only 10% of the money from the increase in right to buy has gone back into house building. Only 384 council homes were built in the last three quarters of last year. At the current rates—given the so-called investment in social house building in the Budget, which meets about 1% of demand—it would take more than a century to address demand. At the same time, changes through the Localism Act 2011 mean that we no longer have secure tenancies and that affordable rents in housing associations are now up to 80% of market rents—completely unaffordable. On 1 April, my local authority will abolish 90% of its waiting lists and sweep away almost 10,000 people in housing need, some of whom have been waiting for years. The local authority accepts only 6% of the people who apply to it as homeless.

On planning policy, we have plans that allow for the conversion of much-needed employment land to luxury residential use. We have a policy that says that no additional social housing must be built in my constituency and existing social housing can be demolished for development as luxury affordable housing. As the shadow Secretary of State said earlier, there will be costs through the bedroom tax and through evictions, which are going on daily and weekly. There is an opportunity cost in that people are being forced to move from west London to places where there are fewer jobs and there is a huge social cost to the poorest people, who are being dislocated from their communities.

That is who is losing through the Government’s economic and other policies, but who is benefiting? We heard at the beginning of the debate from my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), who said that the majority of new properties are being built by foreign investors. About 70% of such properties in the richer parts of London are going to foreign investors and are being used as second properties, rather than first properties.

The people who are benefiting are developers. I note from today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph that

“the planning minister, attended a meeting with some of the country’s biggest property developers hours after”

the Chancellor’s

“speech on Wednesday”

and:

“Property developers have been privately promised that planning laws will be liberalised again”.

Developers are making money out of this—the same people who are the friends of those on the Government Front Bench and the donors to the Conservative party.

The same is happening in health. Hospitals in my constituency are being shut so that private providers can come in and clean up with inferior services, as shown today by the 80% of people who do not support the out-of-hours care they are being offered in exchange for the closure of accident and emergency departments. In my area of justice, cuts in legal aid and restrictions on access to justice have been made to benefit the insurance industry, another major funder of the Tory party. It is in those interests that the Government act. It would be polite to call it a class interest, as it is actually a mate’s interest. It is an act of cronyism.

The Budget does nothing to support poorer people or people on middle incomes and it does nothing to help people in crisis in my constituency. The only people it supports are those who fund the Conservative party and those who already are or soon will be millionaires.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Offord]

I can assure that hon. Gentleman that in my experience it certainly has not. I certainly would never wish to impugn his reputation, or indeed the work he has done over the past 20 years on the housing authority. I only wish that some of my Labour councillors had the credibility that he has.

[Mr Slaughter]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Offord]

I can only extend to the hon. Gentleman the same courtesy he extended to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) and say, “I think we’ve heard enough from you today, thank you.”

All those schemes in my constituency will allow my constituents to get a home near their family and friends, which can only be a good thing. I urge the Government to agree on those proposals as quickly as possible so that my constituents can start buying their first homes. That is a good thing that we can agree will emerge from the Budget.

The Budget rewards those who aspire to work hard and get on. It is for those who want to own their own home in Hendon, or indeed in Easington. It is for those who want to get their first job, to start a business or to save for their retirement. It is a Budget for people who realise that there are no easy answers to our financial problems but that we are on the right track, so let us get on with it.