Mary Macleod
Main Page: Mary Macleod (Conservative - Brentford and Isleworth)
Mrs Laing
The hon. Lady makes my point for me. The Queen’s Speech is all about fairness, to which I am coming in a moment. Child poverty has arisen not because of the content of the Queen’s Speech but because of 13 years of economic mismanagement by the last Labour Government.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Queen’s Speech is fair to women, through its raising of the personal tax allowance and doing so much for child care?
Mrs Laing
Indeed it is. I thank my hon. Friend for that point. It is important that we treat women fairly, and much in the Queen’s Speech will make it easier for women to go to work and look after their families and do the two important jobs of being a mother and being active in the economy and the workplace. It is through measures such as reforming how we organise child care that that will be done. That is fairness and how we eradicate child poverty and improve the position of all families throughout the country.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
The Gracious Speech by Her Majesty the Queen gives us a programme for the year ahead in Parliament, and today’s motion on the cost of living is immensely important and integral to the world we live in today—especially, I would argue, in the wonderful, creative capital city of London. The UK is ranked 18th in the world for the cost of living. Norway tops the ranking followed by Switzerland and Australia, and Japan and France are also above the UK. Real household income has almost doubled in the past 55 years, and living standards have been transformed. In 1970, fewer than one in three houses had central heating, but that is now 96%; just one third of people had a telephone, but that is now 87%; and 65% of people had a washing machine, which is now 96%.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Lady cites interesting statistics, but is she aware that figures came out today showing that Britain has dropped seven places down the world family income table to 12th, which shows the squeeze that the Government are putting on hard-working families?
Mary Macleod
If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will come shortly to what the Government are doing to help hard-working families.
The consumer prices index is steady at 2.8%, which is less than half its peak rate of 5.8% in September 2008. However, it is true that, in recent years, consumers are paying a higher percentage of their household income for essentials such as energy, fuel, child care and housing.
The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) could not answer the question about borrowing, and nor did she apologise for leaving the country in the state she left it when the current Government took over in 2010. What are this Government doing? First, they are dealing with the budget deficit to ensure low interest rates and stability. Interest rates are at an historic low, benefiting all those who pay a mortgage. Mortgage rates are about 3.5%; in 2000, I was paying 7%.
Secondly, the Government are putting money back into people’s pockets by lowering tax. As I have said, they are raising the personal allowance to £10,000 in April 2014, and taking 2 million people out of tax altogether. That will mean that 4,900 Brentford and Isleworth residents in west London have been lifted out of tax by the Conservative-led Government since 2010, and that 49,000 people in my constituency will be more than £700 better off each year.
Mary Macleod
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. In addition, more women are in work than ever before.
Thirdly, the Government are taking action on the things that impact most on the cost of living. On energy bills, they are ensuring that providers let consumers know the best tariff by simplifying bills to make them easier for people to understand. The Government have cut fuel duty. Fuel is 13p cheaper than it would have been under the Opposition. It will cost the average family in my constituency £159 less to fill up the car.
I mentioned child care, which has been one of the main barriers to women in the workplace and in creating new businesses. The changes will make an impact on helping women to set up new businesses and to create growth and jobs in the years ahead. The Government are extending free child care to women who work fewer than 16 hours a week, and increasing entitlement to free education and care for three and four-year-olds to 15 hours a week. We have also increased the free entitlement to early education to two-year-olds from lower-income households, which is helping the poorest in society. From 2015, the Government will meet 20% of the first £6,000 in child care costs per child for working families with children under 12.
On housing, I welcome the Help to Buy package—a £5.4 billion package to tackle long-term housing market problems. I also welcome the mortgage guarantee scheme to help first-time buyers and the funding for lending scheme. Genworth Financial in my constituency proposes private sector involvement in the scheme. I look forward to working with it and the Treasury to see whether we can make the scheme a success.
Fourthly and importantly, the Government are boosting business and encouraging aspiration. Ultimately, building growth in the economy by encouraging aspiration and supporting business to grow is how to address the cost of living. What have we done? We have lowered corporation tax so that it is the lowest in the G20. We have national insurance breaks for businesses. We have deregulation of businesses and less red tape. We have scrapped the beer duty escalator. Fuller, Smith and Turner, which is based in my constituency in Chiswick, says that scrapping the escalator is excellent for British brewing, British farming, British pubs and British jobs.
Nearly 600 new businesses were founded in Brentford and Isleworth in 2012, putting us in the top 10 of the entire country. We have worked with women in my constituency to help and encourage them to set up their own businesses. The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) gave unemployment statistics from her constituency. I am not sure which statistics she was looking at. Her constituency is next door to mine and has the same London borough of Hounslow. Jobseeker’s allowance claimants fell by 4.4% and youth claimants fell by 10% in the past year. Youth unemployment in my constituency is down by nearly 15% since last year and unemployment by 5.5%. We have done more to help by having events such as the west London jobs and apprenticeships fair, which I led in my constituency.
West London is a hub for great business, and I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is in his place, because I want to appeal to him on permitted development rights and change of use from offices to homes. We really wanted the Great West road in west London, which is right next to Heathrow, to be exempt and protected, because we want to build businesses there. I invite him to come to the Brentford golden mile and see what we can do for businesses and job creation for the future.
Britain is a great country for so many reasons. We have won 76 Nobel prizes for science and technology. We are the No. 1 location for European headquarters. We have the largest creative sector per head in the world. We are home to four of the world’s top 10 universities and the world leader in offshore wind energy production and research. The Government are standing up for business, for people who want to own their own homes and for people who work hard and aspire to get on in this great country. The Government are standing up for Great Britain, and the Gracious Speech will help us to deliver in that task.