Cost of Living

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I do not know where the hon. Gentleman got his figures, because I looked at the drop in unemployment and the numbers for youth unemployment in Durham showed a reduction of 19 in the last quarter. Although we welcome any increase in employment, he must pay attention to the quality of jobs that have been created. In Durham, a lot of people have lost good, stable, well-paid jobs in the public sector, and have taken insecure, low-paid, zero-hours-contract jobs in the private sector, if any employment at all.

As I was saying, the Government’s failure on living standards is impacting on people in the north-east. I shall go briefly through some of the issues that we are facing. With the current cost of living crisis, people are working longer hours for lower incomes, and despite being in work, many people find themselves in poverty. Government Members seem unable to grasp that.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

As a fellow north-east MP, does my hon. Friend agree that for young people in particular, the often unsuitable and unstable employment that is out there if they manage to get a job—as she said, they are probably on zero-hours contracts—means that in many cases they have to do a variety of small jobs to make up some kind of income. That is not a long-term way to plan their future careers, is it?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We need to see much more action from the Government on securing decent employment and career paths for our young people, as we all want.

amendment of the law

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I intend to focus on three central issues emanating from the Budget: housing, infrastructure and employment practices.

Increasing the level of house building is vital to any economic recovery and to assisting families and young people to get on to the housing ladder, yet under this Government house building has fallen while rents have risen. Young people in Sunderland, where house prices are not as high as in other parts of the country, still face massive challenges in getting into the housing market. Those difficulties are augmented by the Government’s wider economic failures, and banks remain reluctant to give mortgages, even to financially secure applicants. Renters in Sunderland can only hope that the Government’s help to buy scheme will be more successful than the new homes bonus, which has led to housing starts falling by 11%, or the NewBuy scheme, which has helped just 1.5% of the 100,000 people who the Prime Minister claimed would be able to buy their home.

I welcome any action to help people get on to the housing ladder, but increasing credit without increasing supply will simply raise house prices, further widening the gap between those who own their own home and those who want to. Gentoo, the largest social housing provider in my constituency, manages over 29,000 properties in Sunderland, but it has over 22,000 people on its waiting list, and that is without taking into account new and emerging need. Simply put, Sunderland needs more homes.

In his Budget speech, the Chancellor used the phrase “work hard and get on” three times. What he does not understand is that people are working hard, despite stagnant wages, and they are getting on, despite cuts to vital services.

The Government are dithering on improving energy efficiency standards for new homes. Those delays are hugely damaging for investment in new homes and signal the Government’s abandonment of their “greenest ever” commitment.

I will now turn my attention to infrastructure and the Government’s response to the Heseltine report. Two things were clear from Lord Heseltine’s evidence to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee: first, his passionate belief in the Government’s ability to boost growth, create jobs and raise living standards; and secondly, his concern about the Government’s direction and the fact that

“the UK does not have a strategy for growth and wealth creation”.

I agree that local leaders are best placed to understand the opportunities and obstacles to growth in their own communities. That the Chancellor has finally committed to investment in infrastructure projects is welcome, but those projects should have been announced in his first budget, not his fourth. I welcome the single local growth fund, but it will not be operational until 2015. We simply cannot wait that long. We cannot accept a five-year gap between the announcement of the abolition of the regional development agencies and the devolution of funds proposed by Lord Heseltine. We will not see economic growth until our regional economies are growing.

Where growth takes place matters, too. A report on foreign direct investment by the Institute for Public Policy Research North shows that since the Government announced the closure of the RDAs, FDI decreased by 31% in the north-east from 2010 to 2011, while it has increased in the south-east by 102%. We do not yet know the size of the “devolved pot”. Lord Heseltine recommended that a fund of £49 billion was needed, but Government sources now suggest that it will be in the low billions. The success of the Heseltine plan will be determined not by the quantity of recommendations that the Government will implement, but by the size and timing of the investment.

My final point in response to the Budget is on employment practices. The Chancellor looked particularly pleased to announce that the private sector had created 1.25 million new jobs since 2010. Although I welcome new jobs, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) will get an answer to his question on what sectors those jobs are in and what hours people are working so we can understand better what is happening in the labour market, because I fear that many of the jobs are low-wage and low-hours. People on zero-hour contracts cannot take advantage of the Government’s child care help because they do not know when they will need child care. They cannot take advantage of the mortgage policies because they will not be eligible for mortgages.

It is vital that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor change course so that a lost Government do not lead to a lost decade.

Public Service Pensions

Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I agree. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the important role played by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General. If I may say so, we make a good team in these negotiations. These are very generous pension schemes, particularly for low and middle-income earners, and rightly so. We must make sure the funding of them is sustainable in both the short term and the long term. That is one of the reasons why I find the Opposition’s lack of welcome for the announcement so frustrating.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

Although I welcome the Chief Secretary’s statement, I am disappointed that it has taken eight months to get any serious negotiation and any movement from the Government. I am particularly concerned about two issues. The first is to do with low-paid women workers in the pension scheme, and particularly those who work part time. Has any analysis been done of the possible impacts if they opt out of their pension scheme, therefore receiving less money when they retire from the benefits they then receive? On the firefighters’ pension scheme, we have heard conflicting answers from the Chief Secretary: he has said they will have actuarially reduced pensions, but he has also said they will be allowed to retire early. I am therefore a little confused as to where the Chief Secretary stands on that.

[Danny Alexander]

I am very grateful indeed for the first welcome for my statement from an Opposition Member. The hon. Lady is right that it is important to consider low-paid workers, which is why we are proposing to move to a career-average basis, under which low-paid workers will keep more of their own contributions, instead of subsidising the pensions of the highest earners. It is also why we have tiered the contributions increase in order to try to prevent opt-out. The negotiations on the firefighters’ scheme are ongoing, and I am told they are going well. We have delayed the publication of the cost ceiling to make sure we can take into account all the issues raised by firefighters in the discussions.