Debate on the Address

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I did not intend to be drawn on the issue of Europe, but I feel provoked by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) first to declare my firm support for remaining in Europe, and secondly to make it clear that remaining will protect the security of citizens. I spent three years negotiating on home affairs for the then Labour Government, and, in particular, on security and safety issues. I firmly believe that if countries are at the table, they can make a difference, as we have done and continue to do, but that if a country is not there, it cannot exert influence. If we vote “out”, the very next day we will be out of all the discussions that are necessary.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the work done by the National Audit Office at the behest of the Public Accounts Committee, and to the Committee’s subsequent work in examining the costs. That is, perhaps, close to the audit that he was seeking. It clearly shows that the net cost of the United Kingdom’s contribution to the European Union is the equivalent of 1.4% of the UK Government’s total departmental spending. I believe that that is a small price to pay for the benefits of being part of a wider community, including the peace and security that that brings.

I believe that, as a whole, the Gracious Speech is rather short on detail. I hope to outline some of the issues that I think Ministers and Departments should consider as they flesh out their plans. There are, of course, headlines when Her Majesty reads out her speech, but what worries me, on the basis of my five years as a member of the Public Accounts Committee and one year as the elected Chair, is that there is often not much more in the speech behind the headlines. I hope that the Government will heed our concerns about good policy planning, because all too frequently we have seen policy built on sand. A political pledge may be made in a press release, for instance, containing no detail and, crucially, no proper cost and impact assessments.

Let me deal with some of the specifics in the speech. If the Government finally get it right with their pledge to provide high-speed broadband throughout the country, I shall welcome that, but I must confess to a slight weary cynicism, because we have heard it all before. The Public Accounts Committee has expressed concern about the use of taxpayers’ money to fund, in particular, rural broadband. The low-hanging fruit was taken first, and many innovative technologies were priced out of the market. There are numerous “not spots” all over the country. The policy has been so successful that the Government have had to include it again in the Gracious Speech. Like the Public Accounts Committee, I shall be watching the position closely—both nationally and in my Shoreditch constituency, the home of Tech City and Silicon Roundabout, where, believe it or not, there are still so many “not spots” and problems with speed that businesses relocate to gain access to faster speeds, especially for uploading purposes. It is striking that the former editor of Tech City News, the web news vehicle for that area, had to use his home address to upload the video he recorded each week to round up the local news because his office, just off Old Street, did not have the broadband width to allow it to be uploaded there. It is important that, as the Government roll out the measure, they ensure that alternative providers get a look-in. Therefore, I welcome the access to land and buildings that seems to be indicated in the publicity, but we will be watching and we will no doubt look at the issue more closely.

Unsurprisingly—it was well heralded—the Queen’s Speech included measures on devolution and directly elected mayors. As a Member for the borough of Hackney in London, I fully recognise that a directly elected mayor can be a very good thing. I pay tribute to my colleague, the Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, who was directly elected mayor for the first time in 2002 and who has overseen stability and good public service delivery in our borough. However, in the rush to devolution—it is going very fast—it is vital that it be properly thought through.

We heard from the hon. Member for Christchurch, and we hear it from other Members, that there is concern in some areas about the need, or not, for a directly elected mayor. Although I recognise that the Government, as they are devolving power, money and responsibility, need to have someone accountable for that, other models may work in different places. Perhaps one size does not fit all.

The question remains: what powers will be passed down? We had a hearing recently with the permanent secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, who indicated strongly that, once mayors are elected with a manifesto, the negotiations over the powers they have may be reopened. How will that devolution be properly funded? Who will watch taxpayers’ money? We know that in the tri-boroughs—Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham—there was a discussion about having a local public accounts committee. That sounds like a great idea—I am in favour of public accounts committees, as you may understand, Mr Speaker—but we know that, for example, in Oxfordshire, the Prime Minister’s own county, when the council sought external auditors for its audit committee, it could find only one person. If in the whole of Oxfordshire, with the talent pool there, it could find only one person willing to be a lay person on the audit committee, that is a concern. There is also concern about resourcing and how we watch how taxpayers’ money is spent.

There is the issue of the retention of business rates. How will that work? In my area, we stand to gain quite a lot, but there is concern about redistribution to the areas where there are not businesses that would be able to accrue the business rates for the local tax payer. However, watching taxpayers’ money is key. Who decides what amount of money is right, for example, for Manchester? Once the Treasury has decided on the amount, it is for Manchester to come back and say it needs more. Who is to be the arbiter of that? It cannot be the National Audit Office in every case—it just does not have the capacity to look at that local level. We have lost the Audit Commission. Those of us who took part in the pre-legislative scrutiny warned that a lot was being thrown out when the commission was abolished. We have concerns and we will return to the issue as a Committee.

The Gracious Speech mentions mental health and the criminal justice system. My constituency hosts the John Howard Centre, a medium secure unit for people with serious mental health issues. I have spoken to patients in the unit who fear going back to prison because of the lack of mental health support in the mainstream prison service. Therefore, I wish the Government’s reforms of the prison service well. I also represent the Howard League for Penal Reform. I know that it will want the reforms to succeed, too. Again, the devil is in the detail and in the funding, of course. There has been a cut of about 20% in the budget of the Ministry of Justice. Eighteen per cent. of that 20% cut has been in prisons. We also know that there is a shortage of prison officers, so I will watch that one with caution.

The northern powerhouse is again mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. The Government heralds that, but we know from our work on the Committee that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is planning to move its policy team from Sheffield to that well known northern powerhouse—Victoria Street SW1. The team will join the 97% of civil servants working on the northern powerhouse who are already based in London. I may be a London MP but I know that that does not make sense. It is vital that the Government get the best input from around the nations and regions of the UK to ensure that policy is not London-centric.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady is making, but does she not appreciate that the whole point of the devolution thrust is to give more power back to the combined authorities and to local partnerships? That is what we are delivering, regardless of what happens to a small policy team or strategy team.

[Meg Hillier]

My point is that this is a litmus test for how seriously devolution is being taken. Whenever senior civil servants appearing before the Committee talk about devolving powers down, we always ask them how many civil servants will move from Whitehall to the regions. We ask them what the total percentage will be of the Whitehall civil servants who are going to shift, even if this does not involve the same people. If Whitehall is shrinking as a result of devolving powers and responsibilities to local regions and nations, we should see a reduction in the civil service. If not, we should seek an explanation for why that is not the case. We have seen some very fuzzy thinking on this, and the Committee is watching the situation closely.

The Investigatory Powers Bill has once again been mentioned in a Gracious Speech, as it did not make enough progress in the last Session. I strongly believe that we need to keep up with technology in order to keep citizens safe. In principle, therefore, I support the Bill, but I sincerely hope that the Home Secretary will listen and respond to calls from all the Opposition parties for appropriate governance and safeguards so that this legislation can gain cross-party support. We must unite against terror and those who wish our country ill, and we need to work together in that spirit to ensure that the Bill is the best bit of legislation it can be and that it achieves all its aims.

Talking about security brings me to the issue of tackling extremism and radicalisation. I do not believe that this can be done from Whitehall. It is important that Whitehall should set the framework, but the best way of doing this is to work at grassroots level. We have had the Prevent strategy in the past, but we need to ensure that we really work hard to deliver this, this time round. We need to do this in a spirit of unity, and it has been shocking to me over the past few weeks and months that senior Government Ministers—even the Prime Minister himself, from the Dispatch Box—have been casting aspersions on the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. That is beyond the pale. It is unacceptable that someone in his position has been pilloried in such a way when he is part of the solution and certainly nothing to do with the problem. I therefore hope that we can now move forward in a spirit of greater unity, because we need to tackle these issues as part of our long-term strategy to make our country secure.

The three main issues in the Gracious Speech that I wish to talk about are housing, health and education. Obviously, I am as concerned about what has not been included as I am about what has been included in the sketchy details. In the Gracious Speech, the Government are making a commitment to building 1 million homes, but let us replay what happened in the last Parliament. At the beginning of the last Parliament, the Government committed to releasing public land to build new homes. When the Public Accounts Committee looked into this matter five years on, however, the Government could not say how much the land had been sold for, how many homes had been built on the land or whether there had been any appreciable value for money for the taxpayer. You really couldn’t make it up.

The Public Accounts Committee remains concerned about the pledge in this Parliament to release public land for home building. It is interesting that there is such a definite figure in the Gracious Speech, given that Ministers do not consider it necessary to count such numbers as an outcome. One of my colleagues on the Committee has pointed out that none of our constituents wants to live in a potential home; they want to live in real ones. We should not only count the homes that are being built but ensure that they are the right ones, and that means allowing local authorities to determine what is necessary in their own areas.

The Gracious Speech mentions tackling poverty and the causes of deprivation in order to give every child the best start in life. I represent a borough that is in the top 11% for child poverty and I believe strongly that the main foundation for tackling poverty and giving people the best start in life is housing. A stable home is a basic right. The recently passed Housing and Planning Act 2016 will do huge damage to my city and my constituency. It pulls the rug out from under Londoners on low and moderate incomes. It takes social housing away from local authorities to pay for the right to buy. In my own borough, 700 such properties will have to be sold in the next five years to pay for the right to buy for housing association tenants.

I do not begrudge people wanting to own their own home or having the opportunity to do so, but that must not happen at the expense of others who need affordable quality homes that are permanent and secure to live in. There is also pay to stay, which was introduced to push up rents for people on a household income of £40,000 a year. To some hon. Members, that might sound like a lot of money, but in London it does not stretch very far at all. The average property price in London is now £691,969. It has gone up about £7,000 since I last raised the matter in the House a few weeks ago. There has been an 85% increase in the past six years.

As of February this year, the median rent for a one-bedroom property in my borough was £1,399 per calendar month. To afford that, people would require a gross household income of £48,000. I do not know where people who are expected to pay and stay are supposed to go. They could not afford to buy their own home and they could not afford to rent privately. That particularly affects a number of pensioners in my constituency. There is also the problem of overcrowded households. Adult children who cannot leave because of those prices keep the household income ticking over. They are paying not for huge palaces, but often for overcrowded accommodation.

Under the Housing and Planning Act 2016 there is a proposal to replace, one for one, homes sold under right to buy, but that is not necessarily like for like. The replacement homes could be of a different size, in a different location or even in a different city, and of a different tenure. It is not good enough for the Government to sit back and allow that to happen. I hope they will work with Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, to come up with a work-around—a London solution—because the Act will not work as it is. I am fed up with hearing Ministers and the Prime Minister talk about starter homes being the solution. Starter homes in London would need a household income of £71,000 on average to be affordable. The average household income in my constituency is £33,000 and there are many households with an income much lower than that. Government policies are fuelling house prices, but not providing a solution.

The figures underline the crucial need to sort out housing in my borough, where 11,000 people are on the council housing register. In 2014-15, 1,338 social rented homes were allocated. At that rate people will have to wait a very long time. There are 2,286 households in temporary accommodation. My surgeries are the busiest they have ever been in the 20 or so years since I was elected. I thought the situation could not get worse when I was visiting people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation twenty-something years ago. It is worse now. There are people living in hostels for a year or 18 months and others being relocated a long way away from schools and family, increasingly having no hope and no security. I do not know where people will go.

I speak also for people in private sector accommodation. I meet people in good jobs but not well-paid jobs—people in their 40s who have rented privately quite happily all their lives, and who suddenly find themselves priced out. They cannot buy and they cannot rent. Heaven forbid that they are on any housing benefit. People on low incomes in London require some housing benefit to pay the rent, but landlords do not want to look such people in the eye. Where do those people go? We are hollowing out London. People on low and moderate incomes cannot afford to remain in London. That must be tackled. The Gracious Speech could have and should have included a clear outline of how the Government will work with London. I hope the Housing Minister will take the matter up.

In the Gracious Speech there is the promise of a seven-day NHS, but in a series of reports the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have concluded, on a cross-party basis, that the NHS budget is far too squeezed. It is like a balloon—if it is squeezed in one place, the bulge moves somewhere else. Earlier this year we saw acute trusts nearly bursting, with three quarters of them in deficit. The proposal for a seven-day NHS has not been costed. NHS commissioners and providers in 2014-15 had a deficit of £471 million and the Public Accounts Committee concluded:

“There is not yet a convincing plan in place for closing the £22 billion efficiency gap and avoiding a ‘black hole’ in NHS finances.”

There are not enough GPs to meet demand and NHS England does not have enough information on demand, activity or capacity to support decisions on general practice—another conclusion from the PAC—and a target of 4% efficiency savings for trusts is unrealistic and has caused long-term damage to trusts’ finances.

Workforce planning is dire, with a 5.9% shortfall in clinical staff nationally. That masks a number of regional variations. There is a vacancy rate of more than 7% for nurses, midwives and health visitors, and a vacancy rate of 7% for ambulance staff. We have seen the fiasco of the handling of the junior doctors contracts. If the Government are planning to legislate on a seven-day NHS, they must do the maths, which are pretty basic. It is about time somebody gave the Health Secretary a simple calculator. We see from a number of reports that GP services are being squeezed and acute trusts are bursting. Increased demand for specialist services will squeeze acute trusts even more. There is an over-reliance on expensive agency staff and locums. The basic maths is not being done and much more needs to be done to ensure that this proposal is deliverable.

Currently, the seven-day NHS is a notion, a promise, a hope, but the evidence shows that it is not planned, it is not funded and it is not realistic. The Government must address these fundamentals. I think that there is cross-party support on both sides of the House for our national health service. It is something we all treasure and love, and that we all know is there for us when we need it. But it is not going to be there if we allow this approach to continue. There has to be a better approach.

Education was mentioned in the Gracious Speech. My borough needs no lessons in educational excellence. Thanks to the London Challenge, decent funding, committed teachers and headteachers, and the vision of our mayor, Jules Pipe, we have some of the best schools in the country, and a number that are ranked in the top 1% nationally. When I was selected to run for the seat 12 years ago, I was asked what I thought about university tuition fees. I pointed out that so few pupils in Hackney went to university that it really was a bit of an academic question in my borough. Now we see scores of young people going to Oxbridge and Russell Group universities. It has been a major success.

But I really worry now. It is easy for the Government to talk about raising excellence for all, but London is under threat. When they talk about fair funding, what they really mean is reducing funding in London. That is unjust, foolish and short-sighted, and it risks putting back the progress made by and for London’s young people. Nationally there are lessons to be learnt from London, but we must not hammer London while trying to resolve issues in the rest of the country.

There is a lot to look at in this Queen’s Speech, and my Committee will be busily examining it, but I really hope that the Government will learn lessons from some of their policies, particularly on housing and the funding of the health service, and that they will work out a better way of having a stable financial footing for these policies, so that where policies are good, they are deliverable, and where they are not good, we get a chance to amend them, and not just through secondary legislation, but in primary legislation that is debatable and amendable in this House, and the Lords must not be so neutered. The penultimate paragraph in the Queen’s Speech talks about the primacy of the House of Commons, but it is really vital that the experts in the Lords get their say too, to ensure that these polices are better. It is no proud thing for a Government to introduce policies that increase poverty, deprivation and inequality. I fear that, without proper scrutiny and detail, that is what will happen as a result of this Queen’s Speech.

Panama Papers

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We took a whole series of actions in the Budget, and of course we have the diverted profits tax, which is a tremendous weapon for making sure these companies pay their tax in the jurisdictions where they are rightly earning the money. This tool of being able to exchange tax information and having a common reporting standard, which is what we set in train in 2013, will make the biggest difference.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the main benefits of the journalism that uncovered the Panama papers was that it shone sunlight on areas where some people did not want it to go. The Prime Minister makes great play of saying that his Government have done a great deal to improve corporate tax transparency, but this is nowhere near enough. When is he going to step up and make sure that corporates publish their tax information so that everybody—the public—can see where tax is being paid?

[The Prime Minister]

I am not saying that we have a perfect record, but this Government have done more than any previous Government to make this happen. I will answer the hon. Lady very directly: of course our system is based on full disclosure by companies to the Revenue but with a basic deal of taxpayer confidentiality between companies and the Revenue. That is the way our system and most other systems work. That is why the common reporting standards and the exchange of information between tax jurisdictions is so important, to make sure that these companies are telling the truth to us and to other jurisdictions. Only when that happens will we be able to recover the money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Richard Burgon. Not here.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

10. What assessment he made of the effectiveness of the Major Projects Authority prior to January 2016.

[The Minister without Portfolio (Robert Halfon)]

The Major Projects Authority—now the Infrastructure and Projects Authority—was set up in 2011 to establish the Government’s major projects portfolio and ensure high-quality project assurance and support. Since 2012 it has produced an annual report summarising progress and delivery of major Government projects.

[Meg Hillier]

The Minister for the Cabinet Office talks about the Government being the most open ever. Will the Minister without Portfolio sanction the Infrastructure and Projects Authority to release more information about which projects are green, amber or red so that taxpayers know what is going on?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Lady will know, because the Public Accounts Committee, which she chairs, recently questioned the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, that we do publish the information she mentioned. She should be excited by the new Infrastructure and Projects Authority, because it brings together the experience of the Treasury and the Cabinet Office, it saves taxpayers’ money, in the light of spending review priorities, and it brings under one roof support for major projects such as Crossrail and the Thames tideway tunnel, as well as major transformational projects such as universal credit.

G7

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are doing two things. One is working internationally to get that done; the OECD has been leading a piece of work on base erosion and profit shifting, trying to stop companies shifting their profits artificially around the world. The 90 countries that have signed up to automatic tax information exchange will give that work real teeth, but we have not waited for that. In this country in the last Budget the Chancellor introduced what was called the diverted profits tax, so that if we see a company that is making lots of money in the UK but not paying taxes in the UK, we can present it with a tax bill. So we are taking international action but we are not waiting for it here domestically. This is changing the culture of the companies concerned.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s conversations with President Buhari and the commitment to tackle Boko Haram in Nigeria. He also mentioned that he had had discussions about tackling corruption, which is obviously a serious issue. Can he give us more detail about those discussions and actions?

[The Prime Minister]

I hope the hon. Lady agrees that President Buhari’s election is a very important moment for Nigeria, because he won the election even though he was facing some pretty overwhelming odds in relation to what his opposing candidate’s party was doing, if I may put it that way in the most gentle form. President Buhari has a track record of fighting corruption and has put it at the top of his agenda. His speech at his inauguration was a model of doing that. He needs to sort out corruption in the army and in the oil department and industry. What Britain is trying to say is, “We are there as your partner and want to help you, so the more we can do to help you clean up this corruption, the better for people not only in Nigeria, but throughout the region and here too.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

As I hope I have made clear, I agree with the hon. Lady. Trade unions play an important part in economic success, or at least they should do. The difficulty is that too many trade unions do not represent their members and do not engage and work with their members. We therefore need to make sure that we have modern legislation for our trade unions so that they do not hold people, in effect, to ransom.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What steps he is taking to tackle security issues on the Stranraer to Larne ferry route.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

Home Office Immigration Enforcement in Northern Ireland and Police Scotland work together closely to intercept and share information about illegal immigrants travelling between the west of Scotland and the Northern Ireland ports.

[Meg Hillier]

Of the people stopped on that route—they are a small percentage of the total number of travellers—a very high number are illegal migrants or people who mean to do harm to our country and seek backdoor routes between the Republic and mainland Britain. What conversations has the Secretary of State had with Police Scotland to ensure that the resources are there to catch those people?

[David Mundell]

I have been heavily involved in this issue and I was very disappointed that the Scottish Government chose to dissolve Dumfries and Galloway police force, which had considerable expertise in that area. Police Scotland has set up a ports unit, which is seeking to deal with these issues, but I will continue to pursue the hon. Lady’s concerns with the Scottish Government.

Debate on the Address

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) who gave the first maiden speech of this Parliament. I look forward to working with him to tackle the scourge of poor broadband services. It is certainly a scourge in rural areas, as I am aware from my work on the Public Accounts Committee, but it happens in my area of Shoreditch too. I will not detain the House on a topic that I have spoken about many times before, but I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman to tackle that.

I also endorse the comments made by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), the right hon. and learned Members for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) and for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) about the Human Rights Act. They spoke very well and as they are four of the 12 Member majority, it is quite right that the Government are looking to rethink the question. It might be that a sensible alliance is already arising in the very first day of this Parliament that will ensure that sense is seen and that irrevocable steps are not taken in that direction.

I cast my mind back to the morning of 8 May at 4 am, when my result was declared in Hackney South and Shoreditch. Celebration was far from the minds of the people I represent in one of the poorest communities in Britain. For them, there is now and was then a sense of trepidation and fear about what the next five years might bring. I thank them for returning me, as I did in the early morning of 8 May, but I stand here with some fear and trepidation about what might affect them.

My constituency borders the Square Mile, where vast fortunes are made and millions are traded every second. In Shoreditch, we are also home, of course, to some of the fastest growing tech companies in Britain, the household names of tomorrow. That is the tech hub of Shoreditch and the Silicon roundabout. Hundreds of entrepreneurs and start-ups from around the world come to a borough bustling with ingenuity and innovation, radical thinking and a willingness to take risks. Amid all the buzz and excitement, however, there is a dark heart of poverty and social exclusion, with poor families struggling to make ends meet, poor pensioners shivering under blankets and poor young people without the connections to join that tech revolution on their doorstep. Hackney might be achingly hip but parts of it are also achingly poor.

The Prime Minister spoke earlier about his one nation vision for Britain, and I hope that when he next visits Tech City he will also take the time to visit the Wenlock Barn Estate or other estates in my constituency and see the face of poverty, so that he really means what he says about one nation. In Hackney, 47% of children live in poverty. One local housing association recently told me that it has more working tenants on benefits than tenants who are not working. In many of the excellent secondary schools in Hackney, which are doing a great job, headteachers have a supply of clothing because so many children cannot afford to replace school uniforms. Only recently, one headteacher told me how she had had to buy, after much cajoling, a pair of new shoes for a child which they had been promised but could not afford.

Let me share with the House the story of a local teenage boy who was missing school. He received detentions and when he was still repeatedly absent was excluded. Eventually, the school arranged for a home visit by the education welfare team, which discovered that mum was an alcoholic and that the young man and his brother had a single pair of school trousers to share between them. They shared the trousers and attended school on alternate days. If it sounds Dickensian, that is because it is. The young man overcame that and went on to university, which is a remarkable sign of resilience.

The people of Hackney are asking the Government: “What about us? How do we fit into the Government’s plans for the next five years?” How will Ministers help my constituents make their dreams come true and how will opportunity spread through society instead of being hoarded at the top? How will wealth, power and opportunity be enjoyed by all? We are asking the questions, but we will search in vain for answers as we consider this Queen’s Speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) spoke just now about the challenges of housing. Rather than repeating his points, I endorse what he said about the challenges he faces. There are many in Hackney too. More people rent social housing in Hackney than own or rent privately combined and more people rent privately than own their own home. Londoners are crying out for decent affordable housing. The average price of a home in Hackney is £606,000, but that masks the fact that a family house is now typically more than £1 million. House price inflation has sent prices rocketing and the effect is brutal. Young couples cannot afford to buy their first flat, let alone move up from the first flat to their first home. Unless they are millionaires, they might as well not bother.

In 2010, the Government proposed a constituency boundary review, which we note was not mentioned today in the Gracious Speech. According to the figures cited then, my constituency was one of the smallest in Britain. Today, it is one of the largest with a 40% rise since 2005 to 84,000 people on the electoral register. That is a sure sign that we need a radical house building programme to ease the pressure, particularly in London but also nationally.

The Government have done nothing to ease the pressure on the housing market. They have built a pitiful number of houses for affordable rent. The hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who is not in his place at the moment, although I mentioned that I was going to say this, has sold the fire station in my area for £28 million, which can only mean luxury flats. That is a scandal and not only because the fire response time is now more than six minutes. If it had to be sold at all, why not for affordable local housing? The dividend for the taxpayer would have been much greater over time.

In Bishopsgate in Shoreditch, an area that has not had a single social housing unit built in 10 years, the part-time Mayor of London and part-time Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip is again on the drive for a 48-storey tower block with luxury flats. In contrast, Hackney council is one of the top councils in the country when it comes to building more affordable homes for rent. In its pipeline of 3,000 new homes, half will be for affordable rent—a laudable achievement—but not enough given the scale of the crisis. The word affordable has become meaningless. The new definition of 80% of local private rents has no connection with the money that shop workers, nurses or teachers earn. Without a strict definition of “affordable” based on real incomes and real prices, we cannot have a proper debate about how to put affordable roofs over people’s heads. We need urgent action, and I have not seen enough in this Queen’s Speech about how that will happen. Right to buy will not work in my area. Even if the discount meant that my constituents could afford a home—which would be unlikely because homes are so expensive—it would further denude the stock in London and reduce the opportunities for housing associations to develop.

The Gracious Speech also mentioned childcare. I welcome the move to provide 30 hours a week of childcare for three and four-year-olds free from 2017. It sounds good but the devil will be in the detail, because unless it is properly funded, it is unsustainable. I shall be watching that very closely.

The Gracious Speech mentioned job creation, and it is obvious to me that there is work to be done on that, both in helping young people reach the jobs on their doorstep and providing encouragement and support to the businesses that create those jobs. Although many of my constituents are poor, they have no poverty of ambition, but many of the jobs that the Government say they have been creating—the Prime Minister spoke today about creating 2 million more—have been in low-paid, part-time work. I think of Julie, in one of the local supermarkets. She came off jobseeker’s allowance and was very excited to get a job working 15 hours a week. She hoped that over time she would get more hours and work up to a full-time position. Two years on, she is seeing more part-time staff recruited in her supermarket—no chance of a full-time job for herself. She is just one of many people locally who have raised that issue with me—stuck having to claim in-work benefits but itching, desirous, to work more and earn more.

The Government have only unveiled around £6 billion-worth of cuts to welfare; they are pledged to make £12 billion. We need honesty very quickly from the Government about where that axe will fall, because my constituents are very scared. If they fall out of work, or cannot work as many hours as they want, what happens to them? We are seeing the rungs of the ladder of opportunity pulled away. For the poorest, opportunities to study are costing more, and many of them want to study and improve their skills. Parents, especially, who want to improve their life chances are frightened of getting into debt by taking out loans to go into further education.

This Gracious Speech is a missed opportunity for devolution of real powers from Whitehall. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) laid out a great manifesto. I hope that whoever becomes Mayor of London in May 2016 takes that up and challenges the Government to devolve to local level powers to make decisions on health matters, and the responsibilities for job creation that currently lie with the Department for Work and Pensions. Only that will really help my constituents, who are living in great need but have huge ambition to be part of the one nation that the Prime Minister has promised them. I will be challenging him not to let them down on his vision of a one nation Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s continuing work in this field, both when he was a Minister and as a Member of Parliament. The CPS guidelines are clear that the presence of children must be treated as an aggravating factor when deciding whether or not to prosecute. Often, criminal justice procedures are difficult for children and young people, who feel that they have to take sides, and special measures are available if they have to give evidence. I will do everything I can to ensure that children are protected within the criminal justice system.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last spring in my constituency two women were brutally murdered by their partners within a three-week period, one alongside her toddler daughter. In both cases, families, friends and others in the community were aware that abuse was taking place. Is the Solicitor-General content that evidence gathered by the police from others outside the direct situation is being used effectively and passed to the CPS to aid in prosecutions?

[The Solicitor-General]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I cannot comment on those specific cases, but she makes an important point about collaboration among agencies, whether social services or other arms of local government. The CPS and the police are clear that there needs to be even better collaborative working to ensure that tell-tale signs are not missed before it is too late.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As my hon. Friend knows, the truth about all these things is that we can afford a strong school system and a strong health system only if we maintain a strong economy. That is why he is absolutely right to say that we must not forget about the deficit, as the Leader of the Opposition did. We have to make sure that we keep getting the deficit down and keep getting the country back to work. The truth is that, as we stand here today, the British economy is growing and more people are getting into work. We are making good progress on all our economic plans, but there is no complacency, because we face real challenges in terms of what is happening in the rest of the world. The biggest threats to the British economy are sitting a few feet away from me—people who have learned absolutely nothing. They would borrow more, tax more and spend more. They would take us right back to the start.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The people of Kobane in northern Syria are desperately fighting off attack from ISIS. The United Nations Secretary-General has asked for immediate action to tackle it and support the beleaguered civilian population. What are the UK Government doing to try to make sure that massacre is prevented in Kobane?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, we are taking action in the skies over Iraq, but we fully support the action that America and other states, including Arab states, are taking in the skies over Syria, which has had some effect on the town of which the hon. Lady speaks. I think there is a case for Britain doing more, but I recognise that what we have to focus on right now is the air power over Iraq and the training of an effective Syrian national opposition, because in time the right answer for Syria is the same as the right answer for Iraq: a Government who can represent all of their people and armed services that can fight on behalf of all of their people. Britain should play its role in making sure that happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think it is important on this issue to stand up and speak for what you believe in. I believe that the European Commission President should be chosen by the elected Heads of Government and Heads of State on the European Council. That is the right approach, and it is wrong to sign up to this power grab by the parties of Europe and the European Parliament. I also think it is important that the people involved understand that we need reform in Europe. It does not matter how hard I have to push this case, I will take it all the way to the end.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q7. They have been to breakfast with Boris, to tea at No. 10 and have danced with the Business Secretary, but businesses in Shoreditch and the City still cannot get superfast broadband. This is now a national embarrassment. What is the Prime Minister going to do?

[The Prime Minister]

We have put a huge amount of money into expanding superfast broadband, and we are now doing better than other European countries in terms of the roll-out of our network and the speeds that are available. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is working very hard to deal with those areas of the country that do not yet have superfast broadband, and I will make sure that he puts Hackney firmly on his list.

G7

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that we need to keep examining our own legal situation to make sure that where wrongdoing is being planned, we can prosecute. That is why I mentioned in my statement the change we are making through one of the Bills in the Queen’s Speech to ensure that we properly prosecute the planning of terrorist acts. This is now going to take far more resource by the intelligence and security services, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and No. 10 Downing street, and this is now really one of the biggest security challenges that we face—as big now, I am told, as the problem of terrorism coming from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region—so we need to make sure that the whole Government are focused on it.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his continued commitment to Nigeria. Last week, I met the Metropolitan police Nigerian police forum. There are now nearly 900 officers of Nigerian origin just in the Met alone. They are very keen to go and work with the police in Nigeria to try to tackle the human rights abuses that they perpetrate as well as the other challenges there. Does the Prime Minister agree that his Government should look into this and should tap the wonderful resource we have in human rights policing in the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. There is expertise in how to police in a way that properly recognises human rights, and how to have other security and intelligence forces that do the same thing. Frankly, that has been one of our problems in relation to doing more with the Nigerians. She makes an excellent suggestion, and it is something that this Government are certainly keen to do.