Finance Bill

Debate between Lisa Nandy and Nick Raynsford

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Raynsford]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point that again illustrates just how dire the consequences of current policies are for people in need of housing.

If the current housing policy and current housing market are bad news for people in housing need, they are also bad for the economy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington rightly emphasised, there would be huge economic benefits from an expanded house building programme. Not only would we see an increase in employment and demand for materials, most of which are sourced within the UK, but there would be huge impacts on the supply chain.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I agree with what my right hon. Friend is saying. Does he agree that there would be a particular impact on young people? There are more than 1 million young people in this country who are desperately in need of a job. Many young people in Wigan were employed in the construction industry and on apprenticeships before this Government came to power, so they would experience a very positive effect from the changes he is describing.

[Mr Raynsford]

I entirely agree. I happen to be the president of Youthbuild UK, which is one of the bodies that has been campaigning specifically for more effective opportunities for young people, in particular disadvantaged youngsters, to get the training and skills necessary to secure employment in the construction industry. I wholly endorse what my hon. Friend says.

There are benefits in terms of the economy. There are benefits in terms of employment. There are wider supply chain benefits. I am thinking in particular of all the industries that provide the materials, furniture, furnishings and equipment that go into houses when they are built. When people move into a house, they need carpets, furniture and various fittings, and all of that additional demand will be good for the UK economy. There is therefore a real multiplier effect from an expanded house building programme.

It is not just about new homes. As has been said, it is also about retrofitting existing homes that are in poor condition. Here the Government have got themselves into another mess, but not through lack of a good idea. The idea behind the green deal is a sound one: that we try to put in place a mechanism that enables people to borrow the money required to fund improvements in the energy efficiency of their home and they can then pay for that out of the savings they make through reduced bills because the home demands less energy. That is in principle a very good idea. The problem is that the scheme the Government have managed to come up with after quite a long gestation period has proved so complex, opaque and financially disadvantageous that it is at present struggling to get any takers.

I admire the ambition displayed by the Minister responsible for the scheme in trying to get it off the ground. He has put a huge amount of effort into trying to promote it, but as it is currently constituted it is simply not attracting the interest of the British public, and without doing that it will not fly, so we will have a continuation of the problems of energy inefficient homes that are bad for the environment because they pour out unnecessary carbon emissions. That will be bad for the fuel poor who end up paying more for fuel than they need to, and it will be bad for the construction industry because all those potential jobs in retrofitting existing homes will not be taken up.