Cost of Living
Debate between Clive Efford and Jim Shannon
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
This Queen’s Speech has generated more debate about what is not in it than about what is, and it has highlighted the Government’s dysfunctionality. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), the Prime Minister made a big announcement about putting people on the lowest energy tariff, a promise that has proved completely worthless. There is nothing effective in the Queen’s Speech to protect consumers from the cost of energy bills.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies published a report just before the Queen’s Speech showing that all the advances that had been made in tackling child poverty would be wiped out by the benefit changes that the Government are introducing. There was nothing to deal with that in the Queen’s Speech. Yet at the same time, there is a millionaires’ tax increase. Those millionaires share £27.4 billion of income, but they apparently deserve a tax cut while child poverty increases.
There are no coherent proposals for growth or job creation.
Jim Shannon
Is the hon. Gentleman alarmed by figures that seem to indicate that because of the changes to benefits, some 200,000 children will be added to the list of those in child poverty?
Clive Efford
I think the IFS puts the increase at 1 million children, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point.
There are no proposals in the Queen’s Speech to stimulate the construction industry and build social housing. It is worth remembering that the Government inherited the biggest council house building programme for more than two decades, and then scrapped it as part of their austerity measures. In London, there were 11,328 social rented housing starts in 2010-11. That figure plummeted to 1,672 in 2012-13. That is a time bomb hitting young people in London, and the problem goes right up the social scale. It does not just affect people on low incomes who are in desperate housing need. People on above-average incomes who have children cannot afford to rent or buy in the private sector in London. That time bomb will not go away, and the Queen’s Speech does nothing to address it.