Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Michael Ellis and Kelvin Hopkins

Friday 22nd March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

A house building programme is exactly what we need. We do not want to increase demand for houses, but supply. If we increase demand without supply, we get house price inflation.

[Michael Ellis]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, under 13 years of the Labour Government, less social housing was built than at any time since the early 1920s? We are now having to catch up.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Throughout that time I was a member of a group called Defend Council Housing, and time and again I urged my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, as indeed did a number of my hon. Friends, to build more council houses, so in a sense I accept that point.

We have seen the policy on the deficit not working—indeed, it will get worse—but we have seen only about a quarter of the promised cuts so far. What will happen in the next three, four or five years—let us say two years, because the Conservatives will only last that long—will make matters worse. The forecasts for the deficit have been out by many billions. The deficit will be £120 billion in each of the next three years, give or take the odd billion. That compares almost exactly with the tax gap, calculated by Richard Murphy, of £120 billion a year. I am not suggesting that we could overcome the tax gap in one year, but we should start to make the billionaires and fat cats pay their taxes properly. We could make a real dent in the deficit and have money to spend to generate the economy.