Local Services: London Suburbs

Jon Cruddas Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huq]

As always, my hon. Friend is totally right. We were never part of the Inner London Education Authority, as Harrow was not, and the cost of housing in north-west London boroughs is exorbitant. We need rebalancing between the London boroughs, rather than seeing this as just an issue of London versus the rest.

Suburbs were traditionally seen as havens of peaceful prosperity—safe and reassuring, away from the big, bad city—but are now riven by pockets of poverty. Organisations such as the Smith Institute have shown that, partly due to benefit changes, deprivation previously associated with inner-city poverty is reaching the outer suburbs. Two chunks of South Acton ward are among the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s most deprived 10%, a statistic arrived at by examining measures such as homelessness, overcrowding and morbidity. Does the Minister accept not only that deprivation exists in suburban London, but that the fair funding review needs to recognise that fact and be future-proofed, so that as suburban areas face new challenges, the funding formula keeps up with them, rather than being based on a crude population calculation?

Employment patterns and demographic trends are recasting suburbs from the parochial dormitory towns they were once seen as into symbols of globalisation. For the 20,608 EU nationals in my seat—that statistic is from an old census, so the figure is probably higher now—Friday’s departure from the European Union will be a moment of profound sadness. The most recent census data shows that Ealing is Britain’s most Polish borough and its fourth most Arab borough, and ending freedom of movement is going to be disastrous for our local businesses. In the Park Royal industrial estate, we have a conglomerate of purveyors of middle eastern food who supply olives and baklava far afield, and they have told me that it is going to be really bad for them.

The stereotypical attraction of suburbia was as an escape from the grime of satanic mills for an easy life: predictable, safe, sometimes even boring. However, a whole set of 21st-century pressures have left suburbs beset by difficulties and insecurity. Crime—itself ever-diversifying, with drug and gang networks and county lines—and fear of crime are top issues on the doorstep, as anyone who knocked on a door during last year’s election will have heard. In 2011, riots hit Ealing, and we have not been immune to stabbings and all of those things, shattering notions of suburban tranquillity.

We used to think of suburbia as a green and pleasant land, but it is also changing in its physical form. Relaxed planning restrictions threaten trees and greenery, with the developer-led “presumption to build” thrust of policy ushering in bulldozers, incentivising high-rise projects and challenging notions of suburbs as low density, which is the kind of thing people used to like about them. I was encouraged to hear in the Queen’s Speech that planning applications will eventually have to prove biodiversity net gain before approval is given—that is, they will need to demonstrate that they are leaving nature in a better state than before. Can the Minister issue guidance to ensure that, as a matter of best practice from here on in, planning committees should be considering that factor?

Plans for the last green field in Ealing Broadway to be concreted and astroturfed over have received a green light, putting protected species of bats at risk and destroying 45 mature trees. This has been hugely controversial locally, across the political divide; they were even labelled “environmental vandalism” by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), the new Conservative MP for that seat. To date, he is still an Ealing councillor, as is the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), another Conservative who opposes these plans. The Mayor of London’s new London plan makes the right noises about protecting green spaces, but it will be put to the test when this matter and others come to his desk. I could pass details of those plans to the Minister. What particularly bothers me is that astroturf in planning terms is considered equivalent to grasslands, although studies show that it is potentially carcinogenic. It is plastic, basically; if it is ingested by species, it is very harmful. It interferes with natural drainage, soil systems and ecology, so those plans need to be looked at.

When a “no to overdevelopment” candidate stood against me two elections ago, declaring “We want to live in Acton, not Manhattan”, I agreed. In fact, he folded his candidacy for me in the end, but still got 150 votes because he was on the ballot paper. I won by 274 votes, so who knows where those 150 votes would have gone? He had a point: a whole list of future horrors is coming the way of Ealing’s planning committee, including a bunch of tall towers at West Ealing that are completely antithetical to the low-rise Edwardian skyline that people love that area for.

Connectivity is a key suburban characteristic. Not only do all roads lead to Ealing, Acton and Chiswick, through the arterial network, but we seem to have every major infrastructure project there, bringing boon as well as bane. The Old Oak super-development opportunity area will, in time, provide 24,000 dwellings and an interchange that will be second only to King’s Cross. HS2 has already compulsorily purchased the neighbouring back gardens of people who live there, who feel that that company acts with no humanity at all. They will basically be living in a building site 24/7 for at least the next decade, and with the ever-increasing price tag of that project, many people are wondering whether it is worth it and whether they will live to see its benefits. The same is true for Crossrail, as well as Heathrow expansion—which, if we are sticking to our climate change targets and accepting that we are in a climate emergency, seems completely nuts, given that Heathrow is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in Europe.

Another thing that I have been told when I have asked is that, “You will get a new upgraded Piccadilly line,” which does not seem to be a good deal. I take that line every morning and it cannot cope. It is already an airport transfer route as well as a commuter line. The trains date from the 1970s. It is a far cry from those old adverts about metroland, which told people to leave the drudgery behind and move to Hounslow or wherever, and showed utopian neighbourhoods a comfortable commute from the city.

Shrivelling school and hospital budgets, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) mentioned, hollowed-out high streets and unaffordable housing with unlet retail units below have turned suburbs into ghost towns. Will the Government’s plans for business rate retention allow councils to intervene to assist suburban high streets?

We may be moving towards the French model of the banlieue, with diverse communities on the outskirts and the rich in the inner cities, as seen in the film “La Haine”. Prohibitive pricing puts any kind of London property out of reach of ordinary pockets to rent, let alone get a toehold on the property ladder. Urgent house building for all tenures and more council housing are needed to reverse the damaging effects of right to buy, which never replenished the secure tenancy stock that was lost. Does the Minister agree that it is scandalous that the national housing benefit bill is £22 billion, dwarfing the £6 billion spent on building homes?

In place of urban stability, transitory communities and churn are features of the suburban landscape, as seen in phenomena such as beds in sheds. Ealing is a borough where families are both dumped by councils from further in London and exported to further out, sometimes within the same borough because it is geographically so big.

[Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend speaks powerfully about the transitory nature of the communities and the urbanisation of some of our suburbs, on which she worked as an academic before becoming an MP. A good case in point is the London borough of Havering, which has seen extraordinary transformations in the last few years, often unbeknown to the council, which has been slow to adapt.

Those transformations have huge implications for the opportunities of young people in Havering. The rate of referrals to children’s services has increased by 115% since 2014, which is eight times the outer London average. Since 2013, there has been a 170% increase in serious youth violence incidents, which is the highest rate of increase in London. Those are examples of the dilemmas that outer London boroughs are facing.

[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?

Big Society

Jon Cruddas Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

I welcome the debate because, judging from the press coverage, the big society appears all set to become a national joke. It remains the Prime Minister’s “absolute passion”, so I find it strange that the debate has to be secured through the Back-Bench business route. According to a report in ThirdSector Online in June last year, the Cabinet Office, in its structural reform plan, wanted to set up a Select Committee on civil society, but we are where we are.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) on securing the debate and on his contribution. He has shown a commitment to the future of his port. It appears to have become his absolute passion and I wish him well in that.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Just to let the hon. Gentleman know, the Select Committee on which I sit, the Select Committee on Public Administration, is responsible for civil society and is doing a lot of work on it as we speak.

[Jon Cruddas]

I take it then that the plan for a Select Committee on civil society is suspended for the time being because it is covered by the Public Administration Committee.

I have to make an admission: I quite like the notion of the big society. It returns us to issues of duty, obligation, service and contribution that should be the hallmark of all political parties, so I do not think that a monopoly is obtained by any party. Moreover, I resist the simple notion that the big society is a sham and simply a veneer for ideologically driven cuts, not least because, as the hon. Member for Dover said, the Prime Minister’s attachment to that agenda predates the economic crisis and the onset of the cuts. I have read a number of what are supposedly the key texts in the big society debate. I refer hon. Members to the pamphlets of the hon. Member for Hereford and South Hertfordshire on compassionate conservatism and compassionate economics—his big society book.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am deeply grateful for that wonderful accolade but may I point out that it is Hereford and South Herefordshire, not to be confused with the doubtless equally marvellous county of Hertfordshire?

[Jon Cruddas]

I stand corrected.

There are some points of common ground in the texts that I have seen, which are interesting and add to the sum total of public knowledge. Aspects of the big society could lead to people having more control over their lives and to the creation of a more responsible society. That is a good departure point for the discussion today. Labour should welcome that and support empowerment and social responsibility.

I therefore refer Members to a pamphlet entitled “The Politics of Decency” written by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who cannot be here today, a number of years ago, which set out many of the terms of the current debate; her substantive policy proposals predated many of them. However, despite all the warm words that I am offering for the agenda, my reservations start to become apparent when we talk about delivering empowerment and social responsibility on the ground.

I suggest that, for three basic reasons, the Government agenda will not succeed in delivering on its stated objectives. First, it is weak on the role of the state. Witness the amendment that was not selected, which clarifies some of the views of the Conservative party on the matter. Secondly, the agenda does not have a robust enough approach in its criticisms of the private sector. Thirdly, the agenda is essentially silent on central issues of social justice.

Fundamentally, the big society agenda is about a redistribution of power and responsibility away from Whitehall and towards local government, intermediate organisations, local communities and individuals. However, the Government will be unable to achieve that. Consider the argument that the Government are uncertain, to put it in a charitable way, on the role of the state. The Prime Minister regularly acknowledges that the state will have to play an active role in building the big society, but what is happening on the ground? The Government want to encourage giving, but despite lobbying from the charitable sector, they have said that they will drop transitional relief on gift aid, worth around £100 million a year. The Government want to encourage community ownership and management of local assets built around the right to buy in the Localism Bill, but in reality they prefer to flog public sector assets off to the private sector. Witness what happened on the forests. A similar thing is happening with the £500 million of regional development agency assets. There is clear potential for something similar to happen with the £37 billion of primary care trust assets.

Moreover, the Government say that they want more third sector delivery of public services, but the detail of their policies will not necessarily enable that to happen. For instance, where their reforms are most advanced in terms of welfare to work, the scale and cash-flow requirements of the contracts mean that the vast majority will go to very large private sector firms, which then may or may not subcontract to charities or social enterprises, and may or may not do so on a fair basis. I have heard that the welfare Minister in the other place recently said that he anticipated a “perfect car crash” among providers. That is dangerous, because of the human consequences, and because providers will go to the wall as a result. Future examples could include offender rehabilitation and health.

Another example is the way in which the Government want to encourage public sector workers to spin out and form independent mutuals. I was recently told that the Secretary of State wants one in six public sector staff to do so by the end of this Parliament. Under the Labour scheme, those public sector workers could keep their pensions, received significant transitional support, and were guaranteed a three-year contract.

I tentatively suggest that none of that would be the case under the Tory plans. Communities have a right-to-buy asset, but minimal support to do so. They have the right to challenge local public services, but minimal support to do so. Public sector staff have the right to provide or to spin out, but minimal support to do so. We must consider alongside that the inability to deliver because of the cuts. If the big society is about more than informal acts of generosity, we need the infrastructure to provide it: people to train and manage volunteers, and people to win public service contracts and ensure that the services are delivered to a consistently high standard. That infrastructure has been hit. The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations estimates that the voluntary sector will lose £1 billion as a result of cuts, the loss of gift aid transitional relief and the rise in VAT.

The cuts to the sector are beginning to stack up. Charities and voluntary groups in London have been subject to cuts of £50 million in the past 12 months. Council community grant programmes have been cut up and down the country. The list is growing by the day, and includes mental health services, autism charities, rape and crisis support centres, stroke associations, career support services, carers, housing and homelessness charities, YMCA branches, citizens advice bureaux and children’s charities. Similarly, some cuts to benefit services will leave people feeling less in control of their lives, not more. They include cuts to disability living allowance, tightened thresholds for social care, cuts to Supporting People budgets and cuts to housing benefit. That reflects a failure to deliver the big society.

The Government are silent on the private sector. If people feel disempowered vis-à-vis the state, the same applies to their relationship with the private sector. The Government essentially say nothing on redistributing power and responsibility in that regard. For example, they propose to reduce workers’ rights in the “Resolving workplace disputes” consultation, yet beyond praising best practice, they do not appear to have much appetite for doing anything practical to encourage more corporate social responsibility by giving time or money to good causes. Such contributions are significantly lower in the UK than they are in the US, which relates directly to levels of civic engagement and volunteering. For example, 82% of people who do not volunteer but would like to do so cite lack of time as a reason, and research by the Cabinet Office recently found that half of employees would like a volunteering and giving scheme to be established by their employer.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman speaks as if the past 13 years have been a rosy world in which the long arm of the state has been able to deliver all the public goods that we need without any problems. Is it not the case that we have tested to destruction the theory that the state knows best? We should harness the creativity of individuals and communities to partner the state to deliver the services that we need at local level.

[Jon Cruddas]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me for literally one minute, I will come on to a couple of instances that are a hallmark of the previous Government’s record, which should be compared and contrasted with the collapse in infrastructure that will result from providing the big society on the ground.

The Government say little on fairness in talking about the big society. There is a strong correlation between levels of deprivation and levels of civic engagement, with more deprived areas less likely to participate in volunteering. Third sector organisations tend to be more dependent on public money in more deprived areas, and more deprived areas have tended to get a worse deal from the spending review. The cumulative result is likely to be that the infrastructure for delivering the big society will be hit hardest in deprived areas that are less able to deliver the big society vision. To my mind, where the Government’s big society reforms genuinely empower people and lead to a more responsible society, Labour should welcome them. Conversely, where their reforms do not empower people or lead to a more responsible society, Labour should oppose them.

Finally, I want to make a couple of points about Labour’s record. Between 2000-01 and 2007-08, the voluntary sector income grant grew by just over 40%, from £25 billion to £35.5 billion, of which individual giving accounted for more than 40%, and the voluntary sector work force grew by 124,000. Labour set up the Office of the Third Sector, and the current Leader of the Opposition was the country’s first ever Minister for the Third Sector. I think that we can argue that under Labour the third sector thrived. It appears that some define the big society as a national joke, but I have to say that I fear—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I call Rory Stewart.