Local Services: London Suburbs

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There are many outer Londons, with different types of housing, and different 21st-century pressures that affect all London suburbs, east and west. Dagenham and Ealing are probably mirror images of each other, although we in Ealing like to think that we are further in.

Ealing was once known for being leafy—and for its comedy—but it now ranks as the 10th-worst borough in the country on the barriers to housing index of multiple deprivation. It ranks particularly badly on housing affordability as a quality of life indicator. That has an impact on educational attainment, employment and public health. Some 18 of the top 20 worst boroughs are in London, with 12 of those in outer London.

We must recognise that the binary divide between inner and outer London is inadequate for boroughs such as Ealing and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow West and for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), who have mentioned that their boroughs have characteristics of both. If the current boundary had not been not arbitrarily drawn by political bureaucrats, somewhere such as Acton could, socially and geographically, easily fall into most definitions of inner London—it has two tube stations in zone 2. Meanwhile, Southall, which is some miles west, is indisputably and cartographically in outer London. They have similar deprivation problems, however, which lead to higher costs for the local authority.

Some 65% of adults speak English at home in Ealing borough compared with the London average of 77%. Diversity is a strength, but it comes at a cost that is not recognised in the formula. There are disparities not only between boroughs but within them. Child deprivation in the Chiswick part of my seat is at 13%, but in the East Acton ward, which borders it, it is above average, at 23%.

The Outer London Commission, which was established by the previous mayoralty, made a start on some of those issues. It has since folded—a symptom of political cycles and the need to do away with the old when the new lot come in—but it could surely be revived in some form. Voter volatility is alive and well in the suburbs. My constituency, and those of Putney, Enfield, Southgate, Manchester, Withington and Sheffield, Hallam, have all gone Labour-wards since 2015, so the old pattern of white flight and suburban nuclear families between twitching net curtains is being turned on its head by the new patterns that I have referred to.

There are people of all faiths and none. Census data shows that adherence to the Christian faith is declining, but it often feels as though Christian charities are filling the gaps where the state has failed, with food banks, Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter and the Ealing Soup Kitchen to name but three. None of those were ever in “The Good Life” or “Terry and June”—the stereotypical suburban popular cultural images from which we get our idea of what a suburb is—but perhaps we should update our examples. The Who came from Ealing and Acton, as did Naughty Boy and Jamal Edwards.

Suburbs were established in optimism as the ideal between city and country, a slice of rural idyll in easy reach of the city centre, but they appear a bit worse for wear. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has a set of recommendations, and I believe that the late Roger Scruton’s report on beauty and planning is also about to be published. New challenges include encouraging car-free sustainable lifestyles despite a double garage often being a status symbol of suburbia.

Suburbia is not what is used to be. Nostalgia Avenue is all well and good, but to right those wrongs, I call on the Government to create a cross-departmental suburban taskforce, as Heseltine did in an earlier age with those inner cities, but in a non-pejorative way—the word “suburban” often has narrow-minded undertones. The taskforce, housed in the Minister’s Department, should symbolise joined-up thinking between transport, planning, welfare, public services, the public purse and developers, because it is only when they work together that we can begin to answer the question: what do we do with a problem like suburbia?

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

rose—

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

It is a half-hour debate, so I call the Minister to respond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I will be brief. I thank the Minister for allowing me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) on securing the debate. I will highlight a couple of areas that have already been mentioned. I support the need for a taskforce to join up some of the areas that are looked at differently by different Departments but which, when joined together in someone’s life, make a big difference or are detrimental.

I will focus on a particular area in my constituency, Roehampton, which sums up many of the problems experienced by suburbia in other cities. It used to be a place with lots of villas, but it now has the second-biggest council housing estate in the country. The main issue, which comes up all the time, is transport links. There is one station, Barnes, but the buses are so infrequent that many residents have written to me, even since my election in December, about the one-mile walk that they have to do in the rain because there is no bus. We do not have tubes; we would love to have a tram.

The lack of transport links affects employment opportunities and reduces the chance of social mobility for those residents. People say that they feel like a forgotten village—not at the edge of suburbia, but a village beyond London—when it comes to transport links.

The lack of transport also affects health services. There is no A&E in our Queen Mary’s Hospital, so people have to travel. The substance misuse service in Roehampton was withdrawn in September 2018 and has not been replaced. There is a knock-on effect for mental health services. People have to travel quite a long way—it is a two and a half hour round trip to Springfield Hospital. Mental health services, and access to them, are limited. Youth services have also been cut. The Roehampton youth club was closed last summer. Regeneration in Roehampton is not going to replace the youth services and will not address those needs. Crime is increasing as well. Drug dealing is regularly seen in local areas and is not being addressed.

The final area I want to touch on is pre-school services. We have Eastwood Nursery, but state nurseries are also under threat of cuts. The wonderful Newpin service works with local pre-school children, but the whole area has experienced cuts. There are no more Sure Start centres in the area. There is a playground in the middle of the estate. Everyone can look at it, but it is closed and locked all the time, which is very hard for local families. It should be an area of greenery and, as my hon. Friend has said, an area where people go out of London to get to, but it faces all the same problems as inner London. I would like the Minister to address how we can have a joined-up response to the need for public services in suburbia. I like the idea of a taskforce.