Finance (No. 4) Bill

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

This debate has clearly demonstrated that Members have very different views on how to tackle the current economic situation. I was very struck by one commentator’s observation that the Government were leaving economic recovery to business—that they were expecting business to spring up and solve our problems. That is what we heard almost two years ago, in the so-called emergency Budget—which did not, in fact, do anything terribly urgent. We were told then that very shortly the shoots of private enterprise would spring to life, particularly if we cut the public sector. Almost two years later, we are still waiting for that, however; it simply has not happened. It is not good enough for us simply to sit back and say, “Somehow, this is going to sort itself out.” It is right to want to stimulate the economy, and to create jobs and work.

Construction and affordable housing are essential. I live in a city with an acute shortage of affordable housing. There are many planning permissions and consents in place for new house building, which would have had at least an element of affordable housing, so the problem is not the planning system. Nothing is happening, however. The ground lies idle, and the building firms have paid off their workers and are waiting for the upturn, hoping that the land values will carry them through.

What is so wrong with wanting to raise some extra revenue and stimulate the economy in that way? If building workers are back in employment and private building firms are flourishing, then those workers will have income with which to stimulate the economy.

There has been a huge downturn in retail over the past few months. I read today that there has recently been a slight upturn because of the good weather in March, but, certainly where I come from, that has now been followed by three weeks of pretty rubbish weather, so presumably that upturn will now have been reversed. There has been a downturn in retail because people feel they do not have money to go out and spend. The whole local economy is affected by that. The knock-on effects on the local economy of investment in affordable housing are huge.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Government’s own figures show that house building is down and homelessness is up. In 2008, a Labour Government acted, at the time of the bankers’ crisis, with a kick-start programme, which resulted in 110,000 homes built, 70,000 jobs created and 3,000 apprenticeships. That sustained the building industry. Do we not now need a fresh kick-start programme—hence the importance of our bankers’ bonus tax—so that we can build 25,000 homes straight away, create jobs for unemployed building workers and create hope and apprenticeships for the young people of our country?