Paul Farrelly
Main Page: Paul Farrelly (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Paul Farrelly Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Denham
There were certainly points in the Chancellor’s speech when he seemed to be living in a completely different world from the one in which I am living. For example, he made a throwaway remark that reforms to the planning system mean that houses are being built, yet there were fewer housing starts last year than at any time over the past few years. It is nonsense to claim something that is patently untrue, which brings me to my central point about the danger in politics and government of believing one’s own rhetoric.
Mr Denham
No, because I need to make some progress. In 2010 when the Conservative and Liberal Democrats got together, they agreed on a political strategy that was to blame everything on the previous Labour Government—it was to be their profligacy, their debt and their fault. Never mind that all parties had agreed on Labour’s spending plans right up to the banking crisis; never mind that the banking crisis was global and not national; and never mind that, although the failure of the banks owed a lot to failures in regulation, the Conservative party had consistently called for less regulation. Those facts were not going to get in the way of a clear political strategy of blaming it all on Labour. The political strategy has had some effect—the polls, which people such as Lord Ashcroft tell us are the only glimmer of hope the Conservatives have, tell us that—but the disastrous mistake for Britain is that the Government believe their own rhetoric. They believe that, because the strategy seems to be effective politically, it means it is true and that they should act as though it is true. That is what lies behind the disaster facing the British people.
Mr Mitchell
That was not my image, but the image in the Financial Times. Nor was it of a general, but of a soldier serving in the trenches.
Hemmed in as the Chancellor is, he steers between the Scylla of debt that must be paid down and the Charybdis of growth that must be fought for and secured. I believe that today he has made the right decision in the long-term interests of the country, and I want to focus on those two key issues in my brief remarks.
In terms of the Charybdis of growth, I think he has picked up on the excellent work done by Lord Heseltine, particularly in its reference to Birmingham, and on what we can do in local economies to ensure that growth is boosted.
Paul Farrelly
Today, the Chancellor announced an extra £3 billion of annual public sector investment, but in the 2010 spending review public sector investment was cut by £9 billion a year. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in hindsight the Business Secretary was right and that those drastic, immediate cuts were a mistake?
Mr Mitchell
I do not agree at all, and I will come on to address the substantial part of what the Business Secretary said in a moment.
I was talking about the importance of engendering growth in the economy through local activity, and mentioned specifically the work that Lord Heseltine has done in respect of Birmingham. He underlined the importance of the local enterprise partnership and the importance of stimulating growth in an area that remains at the heart of this country’s industrial base. I am reminded that it was only three years ago that I visited the Jaguar factory just outside my constituency in Castle Bromwich. At that stage, two of the three production lines were lying idle and employees were unable to continue to secure work. Now, just three years later, all three production lines are in operation. We see a company that is storming ahead and cannot produce enough cars to satisfy market demand. Last year, it exported more than £10 billion-worth of cars made in Britain and paid in to the Exchequer more than £1 billion of taxation. That real transformation offers hope at a very difficult time in the area of the country I represent. The announcement that we will have a single pot of central money to support local initiatives is enormously important, as is the emphasis that Lord Heseltine places on more effective governance to address the fragmentation and lack of coherence of the business voice, which he has been loud in commenting on.
On the stimulation of growth nationally, today we have heard the Chancellor announce the excellent news about cutting taxes on jobs. I can think of few measures that could be more effective. Prioritising the changes that make growth easier, cutting business taxes—not easy, and not the popular thing to do—and facing down the vested interests that the Chancellor has to wrestle with every day, are all important measures if we are to ensure that growth is supported nationally. Making life easier for entrepreneurs and businessmen is not the route to easy popularity, but it is the route to long-term economic success and growth.
The way the Government have sought, with single-minded emphasis, to boost trade with the BRICs—Brazil, Russia, India and China—and the other countries with growing economies has had a significant effect. I wonder whether my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench think that all the lessons from around the world on how to boost growth and entrepreneurialism have been learned. Encouraging entrepreneurship, improving links between schools and business, and making sure that all the lessons from these emerging markets are learned are all very important. For example, I wonder whether there is more to learn from Singapore, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands, which consistently top the global competitiveness report issued by the World Economic Forum. I wonder whether the lessons from New Zealand, Denmark and Canada, which are consistently identified as the best countries in which to do business, have been learned, or whether there is more that we can learn from the Nordic and Asian economies that have been so successful in harnessing information and communications technology for economic growth. The Chancellor deserves great credit for the brave steps he has taken today to secure growth.
The Scylla of debt has hung around our neck, and hangs around the economy’s neck, for the reasons that are well known across the House. Anyone who doubts its scale and the anxiety it causes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) set out, needs only to look at the absurd proposition, coming out of the crisis in Cyprus, that one can confiscate arbitrarily people’s deposits. That underlines the extraordinary difficulties that overweening levels of debt, which we and other countries face, cause.
It is irksome to repeat so regularly the irresponsibility of the previous Government in the levels of debt they left and the measures they took during the good times, but that needs to be repeated so that people understand the sheer scale of what happened. I remember studying the papers on the National Security Council when we were conducting the defence review, and noting that there was, allegedly, from the previous Government a £38 billion black hole in their accounts. I was unable to believe that that was possible and sent back the papers on the assumption that there was a decimal point in the wrong place. But no, it was confirmed on the Monday morning that there was indeed, under the previous Labour Government, a £38 billion black hole in the defence budget. We should never allow them to forget the appalling difficulties that their stewardship of the economy and their legacy have left for the coalition to clean up.
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend, who does good work on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, speaks clearly on this issue. It is vital that we do what he suggests. The funding for lending scheme has effectively been supporting more buy-to-let landlords, which was not really what it was intended for, while businesses in Shoreditch—businesses visited regularly by the occupants of No. 10 and No. 11 Downing street—are losing out.
It is interesting that the Labour Front-Bench team, even in opposition, are encouraging local government to consider investing in one of the peer-to-peer lending vehicles, Funding Circle, representing an important part of the difference in ethos between the Government and the Opposition. We want local money invested in local business and creating local jobs—a break from the distant lenders that have no connection to the business models and economies to which they lend. We cannot say that the banks have stood up well to the test. They have let the side down. They overextended themselves with risky lending and brought the world financial system to the brink of collapse, and the rest of us, including local businesses in my area, have been paying the price.
One way to cut the banks out is to have better approaches to peer-to-peer lending. The Government have said that they will channel £100 million to small businesses through alternative mainstream, but we do not have the detail. The key issue about peer-to-peer lending is that, although it is for profit, there is no necessary prior relationship between borrower and lender. The lender, who buys into the model and will believe in the business, can choose the loan recipients, but there is no protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and no full regulation.
The first peer-to-peer lending company, Zopa, was founded in February 2005, but we now have others: RateSetter, the Funding Circle, ThinCats and MarketInvoice. Between them, they expect to provide about £200 million this year alone in funding to businesses with innovative models that are struggling to get money from the banks, which, if they are not familiar with a business model, think it a risk and do not lend, resulting in a vicious circle of not being able to fund a business.
Despite the low level of regulation, there is a good case for peer-to-peer lending organisations receiving more support even as they are. Zopa says that bad debts account for just 0.84% of the £200 million it has loaned over the last seven years, compared with 3% to 5% for traditional banks, so I think the banks are missing a trick and the Government most certainly are. The average increase in employment after a Funding Circle loan was 25%. If we give businesses the tools to get on and build their businesses, we see jobs created. The Chancellor talks the talk on this issue, but he could have done more to help the industry. The problem is that the industry is barely regulated and lenders have to absorb the losses. Where was the discussion today—or even a hint—that the Government might be looking at better regulation? Where were the changes to taxation, for example, to offset losses through bad debtors against tax, which would encourage more people to lend through such models?
My party is strongly supportive of peer-to-peer lending, as it can help small businesses such as those in Shoreditch and Hackney to obtain access to funding that would otherwise not be available—something on which the Government have failed to date. In the current climate there is a lack of access to funding—often to very small pots of funding. Indeed, the owner of Lock 7 cycle shop in Hackney—the first cycle café to open in the country—took out a personal loan to get her business started. She did that because it was quicker and easier than trying to put her innovative business model—a café that sells coffee and fixes bikes—to the banks. Actually, it is not that innovative—I give her credit for being the first, but it is hardly a risky business, given that both sides of the business are likely to do well—but the banks would have been slow, had they even coughed up. To take the chance, she took another route. The Government need to be fleeter of foot if they really mean what they say about supporting businesses.
Finally, I must touch on housing. There is much of promise in what the Chancellor said, but I suspect there will be a lot in the detail, which we have yet to see. The interest-free loan is for all buyers, not just first-time buyers, so it could be a licence to print rent for potential buy-to-let landlords and others looking to invest in second homes. From what the Chancellor said, it is not clear whether this will apply only to first homes.
Paul Farrelly
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the measures announced by the Government today tilt the financial incentives more towards new build than improving the existing housing stock? Home improvements attract the full rate of VAT; new build does not. One of the imperatives in her area, like mine, is to incentivise the improvement of existing housing.
Meg Hillier
My hon. Friend makes a good point.
We do not have full details about the exact implications of the measure for overseas owners—albeit perhaps those with a tax footprint in the UK—or whether they can benefit from an interest-free loan. There are many questions about the measure, which I simply pose at this point, because it does not seem to do anything in particular to target those in greatest need. We see nothing for the growing number of private renters who struggle to pay high rents in areas such as mine, who will effectively be paying the mortgages that many borrowers may take out under this proposal.
We have a promise of more housing supply, but in my area we have seen many properties sold over a weekend to investors from Hong Kong or Dubai. They might be good landlords in that they are not cowboys, but they are after the rental yield, so we see a high turnover of population. These are not local homes for local people. We have also had the announcement of an increase in the right to buy discount, to £100,000. My area has been ravaged because people have, obviously understandably, taken the opportunity to buy their homes, yet within a few years they are inherited by people paying high rents or purchased by those who could have purchased other properties, thereby reducing our valuable—and so far not replaced—affordable housing stock.
This is the same Government who want all new affordable housing to be let at 80% of local private rents, which in my area and many others will put it out of the reach of ordinary working people. We see a Government wanting to cleanse areas such as Shoreditch and Hackney, along with other high-price areas, of people on lower incomes and also provide more housing, but for those at the higher end of the scale. Overall, we see muddle. This is also the same Government who have a Department—the Department for Communities and Local Government—that wanted offices in Shoreditch converted into fancy loft apartments, not homes for local people, instead of the kind of business space that is so often visited by the occupants of No. 10 and No. 11. We will lose business but not get the homes we need. The Chancellor has woefully failed to tackle the housing crisis in this country.