Debate on the Address

Debate between Meg Hillier and Lord Cryer

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the sane and balanced observations of the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess). Given that the hon. Gentleman brought up the issue of the Iraq war and the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, I remind him that I voted against the war—I think seven times, but certainly six. I did not have any particular prescience or a crystal ball, but some of us could very early on see that it was going to be an horrendous mistake. It was entirely wrong, and we opposed it every step of the way.

I remember the hon. Gentleman asking the then Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s questions:

“What plans he has to visit Southend, West.”

The answer was:

“I have no plans to visit Southend—and I rather think that the hon. Gentleman did not either, until he saw the writing on the wall in Basildon.—[Official Report, 19 May 1999; Vol. 331, c. 1061.]

That might explain his criticism of the former Prime Minister.

I, like many hon. Members, note that House of Lords reform is not exactly the centre of my universe. I do not lie awake at night fretting about it, but a number of speeches today have prompted me to make a few comments on it. The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), at the end of his remarks, seemed to imply that the Government will come along with proposals meaning that the new upper House, whatever it is called, will be 100% elected. I suspect that that is wrong, and that the proportion will be 60%, 70% or perhaps 80%—a range of options, just like the previous Government gave the House some years ago.

I have always voted for 100% elected when the opportunity has come along. I have never sought that opportunity, but when it has come along I have always voted for 100% and against anything less than that, and, if the opportunity arises again, I personally—I do not speak on behalf of my party—will oppose anything less than 100% elected, although I would rather not spend any time on the issue at all.

On a related issue, the Chamber that requires more urgent reform than the House of Lords, which after all is just a revising Chamber, is this one. I agree with the earlier comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), but another problem with this Chamber—to which many references have been made for many years—is that power has flowed from it to Whitehall, Downing street and Brussels for about 40 years or even more.

In conversation a while ago with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), I mentioned that power had been flowing from the elected Chamber to unelected institutions for the past 40 years, but he said, “It’s been much longer than that. Power has been taken away from the House of Commons since roughly 1880.” I do not know whether he was around in 1880; I certainly was not! I am sure that if he had been he would have told MPs then that their proposals were an absolute outrage and a betrayal of the parliamentary principle, but prior to that Back Benchers dictated all business on the Floor of the House. It never happened again; it was taken away during that period.

In the relatively recent past, we have had the Jopling proposals, in 1994 under John Major’s Government, followed by the more rigid measure of timetabling, which was introduced post 1997 and which, by the way, I also voted against. Those two things—particularly the Jopling proposals—have cemented a relationship between this place and Whitehall which is entirely unbalanced and needs to be brought back into balance.

That leads me on to an incident that occurred when I was an MP previously, for Hornchurch, with Eric Forth, the much missed, late Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who was a great parliamentarian and a terrific speaker. He was speaking against everything that had happened since 1994, against timetabling and guillotining, and I pointed out from a sedentary position on the Government Benches that he had actually supported the Jopling proposals. I probably used some fairly Anglo-Saxon language when doing so, but Eric’s response was, “Well, I regret it now and wish I had voted against them.” Funnily enough, he was in opposition at the time.

I shall move on to two issues that do concern my constituents. Like many in the Chamber, I have worn myself out over the past few months knocking on doors, and, as everybody else who has spoken today has said, nobody on the doorstep or at street surgeries mentioned House of Lords reform, but two issues that were mentioned day in, day out were, first, housing and the appalling state of accommodation—certainly in my constituency and many others in England, Scotland and Wales—and, secondly, economic insecurity. Those two things were right at the top of the agenda day in, day out during the campaign.

The Queen’s Speech mentions housing in passing, I suppose. It states:

“My Government will strive to improve the lives of children and families.”

The problem is that the lives of children and families in my constituency are not being improved; they are going in the opposite direction. In Leyton and, to some extent, in Leytonstone, both of which are in my constituency, we are seeing almost Victorian levels of overcrowding, with appalling cowboy private landlords treating people terribly, and the waiting list in Waltham Forest, which makes up most of my constituency, is now more than 20,000.

[Meg Hillier]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has the same problem in his constituency as I have in mine, but, with the housing benefit cap, many of my constituents, including working families and those with children, are being forced out of their homes and I am not sure where in London they can go to find accommodation at the right level in the private sector. Surely this too is a concern and rather flies in the face of his generous reading of that one line in the Queen’s Speech.

[John Cryer]

I completely agree, and I see exactly the same experience. Owing also to the acute shortage of public housing in my constituency, people are being told, “You’ll have to move to Walsall,” “You’ll have to move to Derby,”—here, there, right across the country. One woman who was in emergency accommodation and had suffered a bereavement—her husband had died and her daughter was in a terrible state—came to see me, having been told, “You’ve got to move to Walsall, and next Tuesday, by the way.” That was on a Thursday, and she was being told that she had to move to Walsall the following Tuesday. In a civilised society, that is a pretty appalling way to treat somebody.

That brings me on to economic insecurity. Since the general election alone, 70,000 to 80,000 construction jobs have been lost in Britain, and in fact it is probably more than that by now; those are the latest figures I have. The stagnation of the economy is also an enormous worry to an awful lot of my constituents.

On the eurozone, the Government, rather than helping to prop up a currency that is clearly collapsing, should encourage countries such as Greece to leave the euro and get their economies moving again, because that is the best way to stimulate our economy—through exports to eurozone countries, which at the moment do not have the cash or resources to buy goods from this country or others, such as Germany and North America. The idea, which the Prime Minister reiterated this afternoon, that we are not bailing out the eurozone is simply a myth. We are giving increasing amounts of money to the International Monetary Fund, which then hands over increasing amounts of money to the eurozone, so the idea that we are not in one way or another bailing out eurozone countries is an absolute myth. It simply is happening.

There was also a line in the Queen’s Speech that quite disturbed me. It stated:

“My Government will seek the approval of Parliament relating to the agreed financial stability mechanism within the euro area.”

There must be elements of the fiscal compact within that stability mechanism, and as sure as eggs is eggs the fiscal compact will be included in the Bill that this place and the other place will have to pass. In reality, that too will go in the direction of the eurozone, meaning the centralisation of power in Brussels, increased austerity throughout Europe and increased poverty. I find it extraordinary that Governments in western Europe will do almost anything to prop up the euro.