Autumn Statement

Sarah Newton Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The people of the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency and across the country have of course been hit hard by the collapse in the economy in 2008-09 and we have had to take difficult decisions to recover our economy—[Interruption.] I am told by a colleague that unemployment in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency has fallen by 15% in the last 12 months, and that points to the central argument we are making today—if we create jobs and give people opportunities to work, we can improve their standard of living. The only way we can create jobs is if we have economic stability and we control public budgets, including the welfare budget. That requires difficult decisions. If we duck all the difficult decisions, as the last Government did, it is an absolute disaster for the people he represents.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on holding his nerve and taking the tough but necessary decisions that are really helping Cornwall. I especially welcome support today for hard-working people on very low incomes who need decent homes. Will he explain a bit more about the plans for building more social housing?

[Mr Osborne]

We now have the largest social housing building programme under way for a generation, and of course there were 400,000 fewer social homes at the end of the Labour Government than at the beginning. I said explicitly in my speech that I am for aspiration, whether it is for people who can afford to buy their own home or for people who cannot, and we should be providing them with decent housing. We are setting aside £300 million for the housing revenue account, and councils, including my hon. Friend’s, will be able to bid for that money if they put forward value-for-money plans to build additional homes and make sure that hard-working constituents are decently housed.