Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Emma Reynolds and Andrew Bridgen

Monday 13th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

Indeed, and the Government introduced a similar measure in the last Parliament, but the threshold was £60,000 a year. In their consultation on those changes, the Government said that putting the threshold below £60,000 a year would result in “perverse incentives” and a “disincentive to work”. Why have they suddenly changed their mind, and why was there no mention in the Red Book of the Government’s plan to extend the right to buy? Once again, it fell to the OBR to mention what the Government were not prepared to refer to. It warned that the policy risked adding £60 billion to public debt.

We welcome some measures—for example, the raising of the rent-a-room relief and the tackling of some of the over-generous tax reliefs for private landlords which help to squeeze out first-time buyers—but they are not going to end the housing crisis. Last week the Chancellor and the Business Secretary were busy announcing planning reforms, which unless I have missed something are the responsibility of the Secretary of State. While the Chancellor was plundering the Labour manifesto, the Business Secretary appears to have been pillaging Labour’s housing review. We welcome the following, given that these were our policies anyway: tougher measures to ensure that local areas have a local plan; strengthening the Government’s duty to co-operate; reform of compulsory purchase powers; and a new dispute mechanism for section 106 agreements. But these were only some elements of our Lyons housing review, which is a comprehensive plan to tackle the housing crisis—something that this Government are sorely lacking. Sadly, one thing the Government are not taking forward is Labour’s commitment to zero-carbon homes. Pulling the plug on this policy will damage the house building industry, cost jobs and investment and mean higher energy bills for consumers, and I am wondering how on earth they can justify it.

The Government’s wider proposals announced on Friday also raise a number of questions. We welcome plans to build homes on brownfield sites, but if the Government were serious about building on brownfield why did they withdraw five years ago some of the investment and neighbourhood renewal fund which helped towards the costs of remediating polluted land—a fund that we put in place in our time in government? If brownfield sites are to get automatic planning permission, how will the Government ensure that local communities continue to have a say, that there is sufficient infrastructure for the plans to be delivered, that the quality of new homes is guaranteed, and that section 106 agreements are applied to ensure that developers fulfil affordable homes obligations? Given that a move to a zoning system represents a significant change to the planning system, will the national planning policy framework have to be amended? Will it perhaps be more accurately renamed the “national planning system”? It seems curious that the Conservative party spent so much time and energy attacking Labour’s spatial strategies in the name of localism, yet now appears to be nationalising planning. I cannot keep up with the Secretary of State: is he trying to be Macmillan or Lenin? I know the Secretary of State has been on a political journey from the Social Democratic party to the Conservative party, but this journey is rather unbelievable.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Is it still Labour party policy to re-establish the regional development agency, which inflicted the regional spatial strategies on my constituents and many others?

[Emma Reynolds]

We support the local plans. It seemed that the Minister for Housing and Planning was not that bothered about them—I remember an interview he did with Inside Housing in which he said it was not that important whether local areas had local plans—but the Government seem to have done an about-turn on that as I received a nice letter from him today, spelling out how important the local plan process is.

We think it is important for local people to have a say over what goes on in their areas. We have big questions about the Government’s proposals, which we have only just seen and on which we would like more detail. How will the Government still ensure that local people have that say? How will they ensure that local infrastructure is delivered? And how will they ensure that affordable homes are also delivered on some of these sites? Those are serious questions, we would welcome answers to them and we would like to see more details of the proposals that the Government put forward on Friday.

We are facing the biggest housing crisis in a generation. In England, we are building only half the homes we need. I know we have heard from the Mayor of London—perhaps I should call him the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—but in London we are building only one third of the homes we need. We have had the lowest level of home ownership for 30 years under a Government who claim to be a party of home ownership. The Government urgently need to get a grip of this problem. The result of their Budget will be £60 billion of public sector debt added because of their changes and 14,000 fewer affordable homes, according to the OBR. That is hardly a record worthy of Macmillan.

In conclusion, this should have been a Budget to support working people.

European Union (Approval of Treaty Amendment Decision) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Emma Reynolds and Andrew Bridgen

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

That would be important, but, for reasons I have set out, I fear that the Government’s voice and influence will not be as strong as it should be on these matters, because unfortunately they have chosen, through their actions, to isolate themselves—I think of the walkout at the European Council meeting last December and the Prime Minister winding up the French President by telling him, for some reason, that he would roll out the red carpet for French taxpayers. I am not clear why he thought that that would be in the national interest, given that he had already refused to see the French President earlier in the year. For all those reasons, it is clear that the Government place much more importance on keeping their party together—the Conservative party—than on the British national interest. Regrettably, therefore, our influence over ESM conditionality is severely weakened.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Is the hon. Lady saying that her party supports UK taxpayers’ money being used, through the ESM, to support the eurozone?

[Emma Reynolds]

It is nice that the hon. Gentleman has made a late entrance but, had he been here from the start, he would have known that the Opposition are not in favour of the Government paying into the ESM. He was not here when I mentioned it, so I shall say again that in May 2010 the then Economic Secretary, the now International Development Secretary, admitted that there was cross-party consensus that if the eurozone collapsed, we would have to agree to the emergency measures drawn up at the last Council, when the then Labour Chancellor, in the interim period after the election, was still in place. So there was cross-party agreement—I can show him the documentary evidence, if he wants to see it.

On new clause 2, it is also important that the Foreign Secretary provides a report whenever a loan is made under the ESM. Both reports will enhance scrutiny in the House.