Debate on the Address

Michael McCann Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The most important thing in this Session of Parliament is to keep up the pressure on getting the deficit down, so that we keep mortgage rates and interest rates low and continue with the growth in our economy that is creating jobs and giving many more people the chance and the stability of financial certainty in their lives.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has just mentioned that the Government have been successful in reducing the deficit. Will he tell us how much the national debt has gone up on his watch since 2010?

[The Prime Minister]

Every year in which we run a deficit, the national debt increases. The issue is to get the deficit down so that we stop adding to the debt. We have taken decision after decision on public spending and welfare, and not a single one of them has been backed by the Opposition. Simply on welfare, Labour has opposed £83 billion-worth of reductions, and, as we heard today, we have had not one single suggestion for cutting the deficit from the Leader of the Opposition. The Opposition offer nothing but a return to the past, while we on the Government Benches are looking to the future. The future is continuing to cut the deficit. In this Queen’s Speech, we will be introducing a new charter of budget responsibility to entrench strong public finances and to ensure that never again can a Government borrow in a boom and leave Britain bust in a bust. We have already cut the deficit by a third; in this coming Session, it will be coming down by a half; and, in the next Parliament, we are set to return Britain to a surplus.

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[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was right to say that what matters most in the year ahead is that the economic recovery, which is now under way and speeding up, needs to be supported and developed. The whole House agrees that we want people to be better off. Their living standards were cruelly squeezed in the great recession between 2008 and 2010, and in the early years of the coalition Government there was some further loss of real incomes. It now looks as if that is beginning to change, and the way it can best change is if there are more jobs so that more people move from being out of work and into work. Under my right hon. Friend’s important policy, it will always be better to be in work than to be out of work.

As the recovery extends, wages will go up and there will be more better jobs available. Very often the best way to get a well-paid job is to start off in a not so well-paid job and to work one’s way up. Many of us have had to do that, and it will be increasingly possible as the recovery gets under way. I see that Labour Front Benchers think that that is ridiculous or funny. They should live in the real world and understand that economic recovery is good news for people’s potential living standards. None of us thinks that living standards are anywhere near where we want them to be. We need to develop that recovery.

The Queen’s Speech was right to have a limited number of measures. We have a short year before us and it is often not possible to do things through legislation. We need things to develop as the marketplace has its way.

[Mr McCann]

Perhaps the reason for the wry smiles on people’s faces is that, although there are opportunities for people to start in low-paid jobs and to progress to higher-paid ones—many people have done that in their lifetimes—in the current economic situation many people who work in my constituency are lucky if they get a few hours a week on a zero-hours contract. It is unlikely, therefore, that they will be able to meet the aspiration of starting off in any paid job, never mind anything else. That is why Members on the Opposition Benches have wry smiles.

[Mr Redwood]

I think that is churlish. As the Prime Minister has pointed out, using constituency after constituency as examples, people are getting back into work. Some are not in the jobs they would like or for which they are being paid nearly enough, but the way to work on that problem is to get behind the economic recovery.

The Gracious Speech promoted three big things that are important in that connection. I am glad that Labour now agrees with many of us that the opportunity and right to own one’s own home is one of the most important things. Many people have that ambition and all too many of them are not able to afford it at the moment, so measures in the Gracious Speech and elsewhere that can help create more opportunities for young people in particular to buy their first home and for others to improve their home, or even to have their first home in later life, will be very welcome.

Part of the answer is sensible rates of building, which in turn produces opportunities. I visited a construction site in my constituency, where the Prime Minister will be pleased to hear a lot of houses are being built. Not all my constituents are delighted about that, but those seeking a home are. We are already seeing many more jobs for plumbers, bricklayers and carpenters, and wage rates are going up, because those people are in demand. That means that they have a better living standard after the period towards the end of the last decade and the earliest part of this decade in which their wage rates were very badly cut or squeezed.

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

It gives me great pleasure to react to today’s Gracious Speech.

Today’s Queen’s Speech should have laid out a grand plan for this country, tackled some of the issues that matter to my constituents and set the tone for how the general election will be fought in a year’s time. It should have raised the level of that debate and ensured that the Government of the day addressed the issues that matter to people. Sadly, it falls short on those points, possibly because the coalition has run out of steam as a working operation.

Any Government need to act to improve people’s lives, but we heard a rather ragtag set of measures that will go only part of the way to tackling some issues. I want to touch on three of those issues in particular, and on a number of smaller issues that Her Majesty mentioned earlier today. I will touch first on housing, which is a huge issue in my constituency, secondly on the child care measures that the Government are introducing, and thirdly on infrastructure, particularly broadband, which is crucial in my constituency.

Housing is a huge issue in Hackney South and Shoreditch and in Hackney borough as a whole. Prices are rising for those who want to buy homes, and rents are spiralling out of control, yet alongside those seismic economic changes there has come no greater security for highly mortgaged home owners or private tenants. I say “seismic” because the average house price increase in Hackney from 2013 to 2014 has been 19%, which is not affordable in any way and is causing a great deal of difficulty. Although this was not in the Gracious Speech, the Government’s calls for social housing rents to increase to 80% of those private rents are pricing the poorest, the low paid and the moderately paid out of my city and my borough. I applaud Hackney council—led by the newly elected mayor, with 59% of the popular vote—for standing up to the Government and saying, “No, Hackney will not raise rents on new social housing to 80% of incredibly high private rents”.

I mentioned high rents, so perhaps I should give the House a couple of examples—I imagine they are rather different from rents in your constituency, Mr Speaker, affluent though it may be. The median gross monthly rent for a one-bedroom flat in Hackney between October 2012 and September 2013 was £1,235, and for a three-bedroom flat it was just short of £2,000 at £1,993—out of the reach of families. If we add to that child care costs and the other costs of living that we know are causing families trouble, and which my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) is constantly highlighting, how can a family afford to rent privately in Hackney? My constituency has more people renting privately than owning outright, with 12,899 people renting privately and 10,394 owing their homes. This is a real issue now for people, but what have the Government said about it in today’s Gracious Speech? Nothing. That is in contrast to those on the Labour Front Bench, who I am pleased to say are looking at reform.

I declare an interest as a landlady. I welcome the measure to introduce three-year tenancies when tenants want them, putting power in the hands of tenants. With the 19% increase, the average property price in Hackney has risen from £441,000 last year to £525,000. Again, what family can afford that? Banks are constantly restricting borrowing, and even with the Government’s initiatives to try to improve borrowing, the problem in Hackney is not even scraped.

What is the solution? It is, of course, to build more homes. I was pleased to hear Her Majesty say that the Government will sell Government land for housing, but I am somewhat sceptical of that promise because over 20 years we have seen—I have seen this directly as an elected representative in London—how Treasury rules have stymied such moves at each stage. I remember being a councillor in Upper Holloway in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) when the Royal Northern hospital site was being sold off and we sought to turn that into housing. What better legacy could there be for a former hospital than to improve public health by having decent, family housing for people in need? But no, it had to be sold, mostly for private housing and to the highest bidder.

[Mr McCann]

That point highlights the difference between the Opposition and the Government. When the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) talked about giving people the opportunity to buy houses, it demonstrated an obsession by the Government with buying homes, even though a lot of people are looking for rented, affordable accommodation and do not want to buy homes. The numbers that my hon. Friend gave the House demonstrate why they cannot buy a home, and that is why we should build more council houses.

[Meg Hillier]

Absolutely; I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We need a complete, radical overhaul of the rental market so that it is a stable, long-term investment for investors that provides stable long-term housing for families. One reason there has been discussion about the three-year tenancy is that many single young professionals do not want to tie themselves down, but families do. What family would choose to rent privately if they did not have to? They are pushed from pillar to post.

The Government talk about Government-owned land being made available, and we need clarity on that, which I will be seeking over the next days, weeks and months. For example, does it include land owned by the national health service’s PropCo? That amorphous body was set up and has snatched land from the hands of local communities—land such as the St Leonard’s hospital site, which was passed to the centre of the NHS and PropCo, rather than being available for local decisions and local housing. That site is now in the hands of a central organisation. Local people are crying out for affordable, decent homes, but what is the incentive for PropCo to provide that? As with all Departments, the incentive is to maximise income from the sale of the land, which does not mean social housing. Social housing will not provide maximum revenue, but it will give long-lasting social and economic benefits to hundreds and thousands of families across London and the UK who really need it. Those people are working but cannot afford to rent or buy in the private sector, and they certainly do not qualify for other social housing. We need to increase the supply to make that more available.

I represent one of the youngest constituencies in the country with more than one in five Hackney residents under the age of 16. I think—rather to my horror given that I am a shade over 21 these days—that more than a third of residents are under 35. Those taxpayers of the future—those young people—need access to quality child care and early-years education. Their parents need affordable, available child care to help them to work when they want and when they can do so. Instead, the Government take a muddled and ineffectual approach. The Queen’s Speech includes a £2,000 cashback offer for a working parent if they spend £10,000 up front on child care, but for many parents who access workplace child care vouchers, such as me, the existing system works. Instead of adjusting a system that works and perhaps extending it, the Government want to rip it up and start again, adding complexity to the system and confusion for parents. Many child carers might have to register with new schemes. Only this Government would reinvent the wheel to make things more confusing.

The Government are promising to give with one hand, but let us not forget that, with the other, they have removed certain child tax credits and child benefit from higher income earners, of whom there are a number even in my poor constituency. If someone has three children, they would have to earn £4,000 gross extra in order to replace the child benefit. The giveaway is a little less generous for many.

To make matters worse, there are rumours—I hope the Government will clarify them—that Atos will run the new scheme. Atos was ripped to shreds in the Public Accounts Committee, of which I have been a member, for its abhorrent handling of the personal independence payments contract. I hope that, if the Government are minded to go ahead with that crazy approach—reinventing the wheel by introducing the new scheme of which I cannot see the benefits compared with current provision—they take a sensible approach on who delivers it. I am not here to protect the reputation of the Government, but I am here to protect the parents who will use the scheme and who need it to help to pay for their child care. You could not make it up, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is like an episode of “Yes Minister”. Ministers are not saying yes or no and are confused about what they are trying to do.

I am perhaps more radical than Opposition Front Benchers because I have previously called for a child care revolution in the UK—the shadow Chancellor would probably not like to commit to that, but I am working on him. I look to Denmark as an example. The day care Act there means that local councils provide 8 am to 5 pm child care for everyone. The better-off contribute and the poorest get free child care. We see that in some exemplary local authorities in the UK. My children have been through local authority child care where people pay according to their means, which means that children mix and get good quality child care. It is not universal, but I would like it to be universal. In Denmark, the provision means that 76%—more than three quarters—of women work. Child care is a priority in Denmark and other parts of Scandinavia, and children and parents are at the centre.

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[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I am not going to go down the route to independence. I believe the Scottish Parliament has got substantial powers and, frankly, I believe that the Scottish Government would have served the Scottish people better if they had spent more time using those powers and less time promoting the case for independence. They even let their current tax-raising powers lapse: they did not want to use them as it might have been a bit unpopular or they might have been accountable for that. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s argument because what independence does, of course, is raise barriers to the very means of growing the economy. My argument is, yes, we should have access to taxes that help fund the Scottish Parliament, but that we should contribute to, and share in, the whole of the United Kingdom.

If I may, I will pay tribute to someone. Just in the past week, a great champion of Scotland’s role in the UK, Maitland Mackie, died—I am going to his funeral on Friday. People might have heard of him, as he was famous for Mackie’s ice cream and was a great pillar of the Scottish agricultural community. One of his uncles was a Liberal Democrat MP and another was a Labour MP. Maitland Mackie was committed to the view that Scotland would thrive provided it had control over its own affairs domestically but shared in the full benefits of the Union; as he pointed out, 80% of his ice cream is sold south of the border, and he did not wish to undermine that. I pay tribute to him, because he was a very fine example of Scottish enterprise and success—

[Mr McCann]

Unlike Scottish Enterprise.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

He was a former chairman of Grampian Enterprise Ltd, but he recognised that that enterprising Scottish business flourished better inside the UK.

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[Dr McCrea]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is correct that fuel and tobacco smuggling is a big thing, and the revenue that has been lost cannot be properly tackled without the benefits of the NCA. I ask the Government, once again, to act and to encourage the Social Democratic and Labour party, especially its Members who attend this House, to stop putting obstacles in the way—to remove them—allowing us to make progress on the protection and safety of all our citizens in Northern Ireland.

The DUP is a low-tax party. We believe that people, rather than Government, should decide how to spend their money. We therefore welcome the measures announced in the Gracious Speech pertaining to reducing taxation on personal saving. It cannot be right that, when people behave responsibly and set money aside to pay for home improvements, their children’s education, their health care expenses or their retirement, the Government take a slice out of such saving. Equally, measures designed to afford greater flexibility in how people draw down their pensions are to be welcomed. Nevertheless, it is important that a degree of education is afforded, so that people do not run out of money before their retirement comes to an end.

It was interesting to hear the right hon. Member for Gordon. He took all the credit for everything that he looks on as positive in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech—not only this one, but ever since the coalition started—and all the difficult things that were hard for people to stomach, the Lib Dems, of course, had nothing to do with; those were simply down to the Conservative party. Honestly, that is hard for us to stomach, because that is not the reality. This is a coalition Government and, whether they were difficult decisions or easy ones, all the fingerprints will show the Lib Dems’ thumbprint on every one of them, just the same. They must take responsibility, and when they go to the electorate they are finding out that they are taking the responsibility. The recent elections to the European Parliament certainly showed that. They were left with only one MEP. To endeavour to take all the credit for things that were beneficial to the people, saying that that was Lib Dem policy and everything else Tory or Conservative policy, is rubbish and should be binned.

[Mr McCann]

Can I ask the hon. Gentleman about something he said about pensions? Does he not think that the coalition Government have got themselves in a bit of a pickle with the concept of people being able to take all their money at one time, when there was tax relief on that money when they first paid it into the pension pot? There is a great danger that people will receive large sums of money and spend it unwisely unless some protective measures are introduced by the Government to ensure that that does not happen.

[Dr McCrea]

I certainly accept that there could be problems. That is why I believe that there must also be a strong degree of education for those taking out pensions, to be sure that they are doing it for the benefit of the rest of their days, rather than for the immediate moment. Such a decision should be considered carefully, and the proper advice given to them.

It is also imperative that the Government give the lead by ensuring that future Governments spend taxpayers’ money responsibly, so I welcome that commitment in the Gracious Speech. Wastage of public money on gimmicks and non-essentials makes the public cynical about the good stewardship of the nation’s finances, especially at a time of cutbacks on essential services for the population.

In further reference to the Gracious Speech and its relevance to Northern Ireland, the over-reliance of Northern Ireland’s economy on the public sector is a continuing cause of concern. The DUP believes in the rebalancing of our economy, but the answer is not to be found in the slash-and-burn approach. Public sector reduction in Northern Ireland needs to be commensurate with private sector expansion. Northern Ireland is moving forward in that regard, and there have been significant and welcome job announcements over the course of the past 12 months—I certainly experienced that in my own constituency. We are seeing the recovery gathering pace in the Province. My party stands ready and willing to work closely with the coalition Government to continue to bed down the recovery and to enable further private sector growth. My colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that our economic recovery in Northern Ireland is stable, sustainable and enjoyed not only in parts, but in every part, of our Province.

We also welcome the commitment in the Gracious Speech to make the United Kingdom the most attractive place to start, finance and grow a business. I await the details that will outline how the Government intend to support small businesses by cutting bureaucracy and enabling them to access finance. Promises have been made on these issues in the past which have seemed to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises in my part of the United Kingdom, across the rest of the Province and across the United Kingdom as a whole, but the results have fallen short of expectations.

We must ensure that banks will lend money to businesses to allow them to grow. We seem constantly to hear that small businesses will be enabled to access finance, but unless banks lend to them they cannot access it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister have both encouraged banks to do that from the Dispatch Box, but banks seem to be above even the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We must therefore force them to ensure that the money goes to small businesses to allow them to grow as they desire.

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[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

I share the surprise of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) that the coalition lasted this long. I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on the Gracious Speech and I, too, congratulate the mover and seconder of the Loyal Address on the skill, flair and wit with which they have discharged their tasks.

Having read the Queen’s Speech, there are measures with which I have no difficulty, such as the modern slavery Bill, and those on Syria and sexual violence in conflict. Of course, there is also the statement on the UK, which reads that the Government

“will continue to implement new financial powers for the Scottish Parliament and make the case for Scotland to remain a part of the United Kingdom.”

For those Government Members and indeed Opposition Members who are not following the Caledonian debate closely, it might interest and surprise them to know that the Scottish National party is not focusing on the constitutional aspect of the change that they are asking people to undertake; they are putting the case in party political terms. The people of Scotland do not necessarily favour the Conservatives—Members will probably have noticed that, in electoral terms, they have only one MP—so the SNP is saying that people should vote for independence because they will then no longer have the Tories. People like me say, “I don’t want the Tories, but I don’t want the SNP either.” I am equally comfortable challenging SNP policies.

As I explain to constituents and to others at public meetings, I was not around in 1707 when the Act of Union took effect and, unless cryogenics play a part and people freeze my brain or something like that, I doubt that I will be around in 2314. Constitutions, however, are for ever; party politics change. No doubt there will be future Labour Governments—in May 2015, I hope—and future Conservative Administrations, but we have to explain to people the difference between the party political debate and the constitutional issues on which we Scots are being asked to make a judgment on 18 September.

I therefore have no difficulty standing four-square with Conservative colleagues. Recently, I shared a platform with the Secretary of State for International Development, and both of us put the case for staying in the Union. If we are to move into a new era of politics, we should not be ashamed of saying to people that in some instances we will agree on issues and the parties that believe in the United Kingdom consider that Scotland is much better as part of that UK and should not vote for separation on 18 September. I am confident, but not complacent. If we work hard we will be able to secure Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom and will wake up as part of the Union on 19 September 2014.

Much of the content of the Gracious Speech is just motherhood and apple pie. For example, I do not know what it means when it says that the Government will continue to work to build a fairer society. Nor does it matter to me that that is the type of insert that the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) claimed that the Liberal Democrats had got into the Queen’s Speech, as the speech is light in content about the issues that affect my constituents and many millions of people across the UK.

I am not quite as sophisticated as the other Members I see as I look around the Chamber, but the coalition partnership started in the rose garden of No. 10 Downing street to the backdrop of an Australian-Scots 1978 hit record by John Paul Young, “Love is in the Air”, and will, as far as I can see, end with the opening bars of Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”.

I would like to be able to congratulate the Government on meeting their economic targets, on reducing the deficit and on getting the balance right between austerity and growth. Sadly, I cannot do any of that. Once we remove the empty rhetoric of the long-term economic plan, which has been parroted in every Prime Minister’s questions by Government Members and is even included in the Gracious Speech, we can see that even by a perfunctory analysis the Government’s record on the economy is pitiful. We were told that one reason that the Government needed a five-year term in office was so that by the end of that term the deficit would be eliminated and we were told that the harsh austerity measures agreed by the coalition would have had sufficient time to work by then.

The Chancellor might want to claim that he met his target for last year, with borrowing reduced to £107.7 billion against a target of £107.8 billion, but let us not forget that the target he set for that year in 2010 was £60 billion. As the World cup is approaching, an appropriate analogy would be to say that he has had to move the goalposts to score and even then he has only just got the ball underneath the bar.

The Government in the Gracious Speech and the speeches made by Government Members today, have not mentioned the fact that UK debt has continued to rise, reaching £1,185 billion in 2012-13 or, to put it another way, £18,606 per head of population in the UK. Surprisingly, that was not mentioned in the Gracious Speech. What is more—this is very important—the debt is forecast to continue to rise for the next five years. Let me ask a rhetorical question: is that also part of the long-term economic plan?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) said, welfare reform was one of the key areas on which the Government focused with the introduction of the Work programme, described as a flagship policy that would simplify the processes and get people off benefits and back into work. The record shows that the Work programme has not been a success and there is compelling evidence that intervention through that programme is less successful than doing absolutely nothing. Indeed, the latest figures show that for the first two years of the project every target was missed and only 100,000 out of the 1.2 million people enrolled on the programme found work. That is not my measure of success, although it might be that of Government Members.

We have also discovered that the plans of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to simplify benefits and tax credits have also hit the buffers. It is the sole Government project out of 200 to have been reset. “Yes Minister” is often mentioned in debates in the House and perhaps “being reset” is “Yes Minister” jargon for, in plain English, “those who are responsible for the project being told to go back to their drawing boards and start again.” It was discovered last year that the original £2 billion cost of the project identified in the 2011 to 2015 spending review had risen to a staggering £12.8 billion over the same period, yet the Government still attempt to claim that they are economically competent. There is a phrase in Glasgow with which you are probably familiar, Madam Deputy Speaker, given your origins: you could not give Government Members a brass neck with a blowtorch.

As for the Government’s claim in the Gracious Speech that they want to build a fairer society, that view is not shared by world war two veteran Harry Smith, who told the “Today” programme this morning what life was like before the welfare state existed and how he is shocked and saddened by the growth of poverty in this country today.

The Gracious Speech contains the fewest Bills since 1950. I, like the hon. Member for Poole, accept that legislation is not always the answer to every problem that we face, but there are problems out there that require legislation to fix them and the Government are not doing anything about them in this Gracious Speech. We should be hearing about more measures to help ordinary people rather than tax cuts for the richest people in our society. We should be hearing about measures to help people with fuel bills and to replace part-time and zero-hours-contract jobs with full-time jobs that offer financial compensation and treat people with dignity. We do not know the details yet, but I look forward with interest to hearing the plans for the minimum wage. We should enforce a minimum wage and, more than that, we should encourage employers to pay their staff a living wage rather than subsidising low pay through tax credits. There should also be a jobs guarantee for the young unemployed, of whom there are far too many.

We need to tackle the housing market. I fundamentally disagree with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). In my area, there is a shortage of houses because of the right to buy scheme. The money generated by that scheme was never allowed to be used to build new houses or to create homes for the future and opportunities for the young people I see in my constituency who do not get a chance to have a flat or a “back and front door” house. There are 16,000 people on the waiting list at South Lanarkshire council and nearly 6,000 people on the waiting list in my constituency alone. Instead of tackling that problem, we have a Help to Buy scheme that will create, in my opinion, a price bubble that will cause problems in the future. We need to make much better use of the £7 billion housing benefit budget, which rewards private landlords with higher rents but does not invest in one new brick. We need to satisfy the fundamental desire for people to have their own roof and walls not just by giving them the ability to buy a home through higher wages but by allowing them to make the choice to have a steady rent, security of tenure and a clean environment.

None of those issues is addressed in the Gracious Speech, so it will be left to the next Labour Government in May 2015 to introduce legislation to tackle the problems. Let me end where I started and say, to use the orthographic style of Tammy Wynette’s greatest hit, that the people of Britain will regard this Queen’s Speech as a “D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R”.