Living Standards

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

We have said that we would abolish Ofgem and create a new energy watchdog with real teeth to force energy companies to pass on price cuts when the cost of wholesale energy falls. Meanwhile, under this Prime Minister’s watch, energy giants are enjoying a £3.3 billion windfall. That shows the warped priorities of this out-of-touch Government. Rail fares are another example, increasing by up to 9% a year. We would apply strict caps. We have said that we would introduce a new legal right for passengers to be entitled to the cheapest ticket for their journey; this Government are giving powers back to train operating companies to increase some fares by up to another 5% beyond the cap. Again, that shows the warped priorities of this out-of-touch Government.

On housing, there are now 3.8 million households in the private rented sector, including more than 1 million with children. Research shows that many are being ripped off through hidden fees and charges costing tenants £76 million a year.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the atrocious slowdown in house building led by this Government has contributed to rising rents, making life incredibly difficult for families and meaning that they cannot do the extras such as getting broadband in their homes, which is vital for their children’s education and their own social inclusion?

[Rachel Reeves]

We have said of the private rented sector that we would require a new national register of landlords.

This Government are presiding over the lowest level of house building since the 1920s. We have said that we would build new affordable homes, and the IMF has said that the Government should bring forward investment in infrastructure. Perhaps we should listen to the IMF.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor now claim that their economic plan has worked after all, but two quarters of positive growth do not begin to repair the damage from three years of flatlining. Three wasted years have left permanent damage as businesses have lost vital investment opportunities, and almost 1 million young people are out of work. That is why families are suffering; that is why deficit reduction is so far off track. Yet we have a complacent Government. They have no idea of what they have put families through, no idea of the damage they are still doing, and no plan to put things right. Three years in government and still no British investment bank; three years in government and banking reform is being watered down; three years in government and one in five apprentices say they have received no training; three years in government and the number of 16 to 18-year-old apprentices is down by 13% this year; three years in government and major infrastructure projects are stalled; three years in government and life is getting tougher for ordinary families.

Spending Review

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right: one of the central principles is that we can deliver more for less. Ultimately, we should not have to choose between public services we can afford and public services that deliver for people. We need both.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it true that, according to figures on page 11 of the spending review document, the Chancellor is cutting capital infrastructure spending by 1.7% in 2015-16 compared with 2014-15?

[Mr Osborne]

We are maintaining capital investment at £50 billion.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

This Budget comes at an unprecedented moment in our economic history, when families and businesses are looking to the Government for a change of direction and bold action to kick-start our flatlining economy. It is a time for urgency, as after three years of this Chancellor the economy is still 3% smaller than it was five years ago. However, all we got was more of the same. Unemployment in Feltham and Heston has risen by nearly l0% in the past six months; the number of young people out of work is at its highest level since March last year. During the Budget debate last year, I spoke of how there were six people chasing every job in Feltham and Heston. A year later, I am deeply concerned and saddened that I am saying the same thing again. There has been no change from this Government. This is the third successive year of less than 1% growth and the Budget is a gamble, not a plan.

Some measures are welcome. Local businesses will welcome the fuel duty freeze as well as measures to help them take on extra workers, for which Labour has been calling for some time. This is a jam tomorrow Budget, however, not one that takes action now. As John Longworth, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce commented yesterday, many of the Chancellor’s measures might come too late. Britain needs urgency, scale and delivery today. In the last quarter, net lending to businesses fell by £4.5 billion, and in the past two years, under this Chancellor, it has fallen by £28.1 billion. The reality behind those figures is that thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses—our country’s wealth creators—are unable to access the finance they need to grow and to take on new employees. The Budget shows no signs of changing that. As the female entrepreneur Laura Tenison said on “Newsnight” last night, “I am trying to create jobs, but the Government isn’t helping.”

One nation Labour is the party for small business and enterprise. We had a regional development agenda and a legacy of which we could be proud which was dismantled by this Government and replaced with confusion. The Chancellor said yesterday that the Budget confronts our problems head on. The problem is that his judgment is the problem. A Treasury team of five men and no women has produced a Budget that did not even mention women and business. Research shows that if we had the same levels of female entrepreneurship as the US, £42 billion would be added to the economy. With more than 1 million women out of work across the UK, the Budget missed an opportunity to support female entrepreneurship. I should not have held my breath. The Government’s previous three Budgets have shown policies that have hit women the hardest. Women are paying three times as much to bring the deficit down—decisions that were made by a Cabinet with three times more men than women.

Hundreds of families in Hounslow have recently called on the Government to help mums, not millionaires. The Chancellor has ignored those calls and will go ahead with a £180 tax on new mums on the same day as millionaires will get a £100,000 tax cut. The House of Commons Library has also shown that low-paid new mums are set to lose £1,300 by the end of the first year of a child’s life, through the cuts to pregnancy support and tax credits and real-term cuts to maternity pay.

The record on housing is no better. Affordable home statistics in London have fallen off a cliff. Figures published by the Greater London authority show that 425 affordable homes were started in the first six months of the current financial year, compared with 4,659 in the previous year and more than 18,000 in 2010-11.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Does my hon. Friend agree—this is the point that I would have made to the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), by the way—that it is a misnomer to call such homes affordable when the rents will be up to 80% of market rent? The subsidy on each of the 15,000 houses that were referred to will be £15,000, which is why the rents have to be so high. The houses will not be affordable and, what is more, they will put up the housing benefit bill.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend makes her point extremely well. The £225 million proposed in the Budget to support “affordable” homes building is a fraction of the £4 billion that Labour would have invested.

The Government proposed change but this is more of the same. The policies of this Government have failed on jobs, on growth, on the deficit and in the lives of ordinary people. The Budget will do nothing for the 13,000 on the waiting list for a home in my constituency.

[Andrew Griffiths]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Seema Malhotra]

I am sorry, but I will not.

The Budget will do nothing for the 74-year-old woman waiting a week for a blood transfusion because of staffing cuts in the local hospital. The Budget will do nothing for the family I met recently who live in one room: two teenage brothers sharing a bed; a mother and father who put mattresses down on the floor; the father who goes to work at 4 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon; the mother goes to work at 11 am and comes back at 11 pm. They are not shirkers, they are hard workers and they will not be helped by the Budget.

The legacy of the past three years in my constituency is rising unemployment, Sure Start centres under threat, longer waiting times in local hospitals and police numbers being cut. Families are suffering for the decisions that the Government have made and are wondering where they will live as the bedroom tax kicks in and makes their homes unaffordable. It is not too late for the Chancellor to change his mind, change course and get a plan for jobs and growth that will deliver for Britain’s families and businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is yet another example of delaying giving people the resources and support they need, which in turn will delay the recovery and people’s ability to go back to work?

[Barbara Keeley]

I very much agree, particularly in the case of child care support. Families with a couple of children will now have to wait two and a half years before they can get help with child care, which is very expensive. That delay is bad enough, but, worse still, the proposed child care scheme will give a tax break to families earning up to £300,000 a year but offer no help to families on tax credits, whose incomes are already squeezed. Once again, the coalition Government are giving more help to higher earners and less to those on low and modest incomes, the people with the greatest need of child care support.

The Government propose to set the cap for social care at £72,000. Although we welcome the fact that a cap is finally being set, having waited more than a year for the announcement, we must remember that the Dilnot commission recommended a cap of £35,000. Setting the cap at that level would have offered the best protection to people on lower and middle incomes. It is very disappointing, to say the least, that the Government have ignored the advice of the experts whom they put together in the commission, and set the cap at a much higher level while also—this point tends to be ignored—making people pay accommodation costs of £12,000 a year, the very top end of what Dilnot recommended. People who need care when they are elderly, frail or ill will continue to face the shock of large care bills. Examples I have seen of the cap being set at such a high level show that the reality is that often, people will have to pay for their care for four or five years before getting any state help. Many fewer people will be helped by the Government’s proposals.

The final hit on my constituency, which I was disturbed to hear about, is the damage that will be caused to the value of homes as a result of exploration for shale gas. The Government have already caused confusion and uncertainty through their drastic overhaul of the planning system, yet the Red Book states:

“As the shale gas industry develops the Government will ensure an effective planning system is in place”.

That does not inspire confidence, because exploration for shale gas is going ahead in my constituency and, worryingly, it appears we do not have an effective planning system in place to deal with that. Drilling and fracking operations have been known to bring down house prices in an area by as much as 20%. People of course do not want to live in areas where fracking is planned, particularly after the disturbing events that took place when exploration first went ahead in other parts of the north-west. Exploration for shale gas could have a long-lasting adverse impact on the quality of life of people in my constituency. I am strongly opposed to it.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you know the geography of my constituency, so you will know that it is ringed by motorways; I am sure they are very useful in getting you home in the evening. A final aspect of the damage that the Budget will do to my constituency is that it goes ahead with an ill-advised widening of the M60 motorway, which will bring absolute chaos to 800 households in my constituency. When the motorway was built through my constituency, it was called the Stretford bypass. Now, the plan is to widen it by using the hard shoulders. “Hard shoulder running” will bring the M60—and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you are motoring—right next to the homes, windows and gardens of my constituents. Those 800 homes will be blighted by that ill-advised scheme, which I will continue to oppose to the best of my ability.

The Budget is a huge disappointment and will be seen as such in my constituency, because it is a massive missed opportunity and is damaging in so many different ways.

Infrastructure

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

That is why we urged the Government, before the autumn statement, to use the money from the 4G auction to start building 100,000 new affordable homes and why we urged the Chancellor to use a tax on bank bonuses for a programme for jobs and growth, with further house building and a job guarantee for young people. But the Chancellor did not listen—[Interruption.] Clearly, the Liberal Democrats do not want to listen either. With every project delay, every investor put off and every job lost in the construction sector, we lose ground to our global competitors. With the economy flatlining and no growth over the past year, the case for action is irrefutable. We need to bring forward public investment, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, kick-start the flatlining economy and get the construction industry moving again.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the flatlining of our economy and our failure to invest is having a major impact on young people? In my constituency, there are more people out of work than there were six months ago, and long-term youth unemployment is rising.

[Rachel Reeves]

Close to 1 million young people are out of work, and one third of them are now long-term unemployed—a waste of their potential and a waste to our economy, as we are losing out on their skills. We so desperately need that economic recovery.

There is still no sign of the Government sharing the country’s sense of urgency. Only 14% of the 576 projects listed in the Government’s infrastructure pipeline have started and just 1% of those are said to be operational. The Government’s record on infrastructure is a complete and utter shambles. Wherever we look, the strategy is failing to deliver—a perfect storm of uncertainty, incompetence and delay.

Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

We have taken a number of measures, including reducing the small profits rate from 22%, which it would have been, to 20%. We have also introduced measures such as seed enterprise investment schemes and small business rate relief. We have taken such measures because we recognise that small businesses will be an engine for growth for our economy and in employment.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

T9. The Prime Minister has said that a family with children will lose an average of £511 under the Government’s changes this year alone. Is that fair when the Government are cutting taxes for the most wealthy?

[Danny Alexander]

The Government are increasing taxes on the wealthiest in society and using that money for a number of things, including to put in place a new free child care entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds; to extend the child care entitlement of three and four-year-olds to 15 hours a week; and to reduce the income tax personal allowance, which benefits families in work. The hon. Lady should welcome rather than criticise those policies.

Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

Looking through the detail of that national infrastructure plan helps us to realise how far the Government are falling short. Let us start looking at some of the particular schemes that are of great concern to our constituents here in the United Kingdom. The A14 road link between Felixstowe and the midlands, for example, was promised immediate investment in the national infrastructure plan in 2011, but the Department for Transport has now said that the construction will not begin for six years, subject to agreement with various local authorities on funding packages and so forth. There is already much concern about that particular scheme.

The Mersey Gateway bridge is another example. Many Cabinet Ministers described it as incredibly important. I think the Chancellor and the Transport Secretary at the time said that it could be implemented quickly, but although the Department for Transport wanted construction to begin in 2010, there will not be a preferred bidder until late 2013. Construction will not start until the end of that year and it is not due to open until 2016, or potentially even later.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend makes some important points about the consistency of Government leadership in seeing through some of the projects in the infrastructure plan. Comparison between the original plan for construction of November 2011 and the update in April this year suggests that 182 new projects have been added, but 63 disappeared without explanation. Does my hon. Friend agree that for any measures to have effect, leadership is necessary to see the projects through and to gain clarity on the outcomes we want to be delivered?

[Chris Leslie]

My hon. Friend is totally correct. Ministers seem to think they can come to the Dispatch Box and make a set of announcements, which will then magically happen as they busy themselves in their part-time political advisory roles or whatever they happen to be doing. If we start to walk through the projects one by one, we realise that Ministers are not gripping the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Clark)]

My hon. Friend is a distinguished member of the Treasury Committee. The Independent Commission on Banking has considered the matter, and has made some proposals for easier transfer between accounts. It has said that that should be under review, but I shall be happy to meet my hon. Friend, and I understand the case that she is making.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The number of young people in my constituency who have been unemployed for more than 12 months has risen twelvefold since May 2010. Why does the Minister think that is, and was it a mistake to get rid of the future jobs fund within weeks of taking office?

[Sajid Javid]

I thought that the hon. Lady might start by congratulating the Government on the fifth consecutive fall in unemployment. She will know that one of the key planks of the Government’s policy for dealing with youth employment is the provision of apprenticeships. She might also welcome the 68% increase in the number of apprenticeships in her constituency.

Professional Standards in the Banking Industry

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I will give way in a moment, when I have made my arguments about the public inquiry.

Secondly, judge-led public inquiries take an incredibly long time to conclude. I shall set out my evidence. In the motion, the Opposition want an inquiry established under the Inquiries Act 2005. There have been 14 inquiries under that Act, seven of which are still ongoing or have not been published because of criminal proceedings—remember, as we hear, there could be criminal proceedings in this case—and one of which was set up seven years ago and still has not been published.

The shortest inquiry established at the outset under the Act—into the tragic loss of life following the explosion at the ICL Plastics factory in Glasgow—took one year and five months. No other inquiry established from the outset under the Act has taken less than two years. Frankly, the idea that a widespread judge-led public inquiry into the culture and professional standards in Britain’s largest industry would take place much quicker than a public inquiry into an explosion at a plastics factory in Glasgow is fanciful. It leads me to believe that the Labour party wants to put off the moment when we actually investigate what happened.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Hutton inquiry opened in August 2003 and reported in January 2004. Why does the Chancellor claim that an independent judicial inquiry would take too long?

[Mr Osborne]

The motion talks about an inquiry under the Inquiries Act, but all the inquiries that have taken place under that Act have taken longer than one year, and the only one that took less than two years was into the tragic explosion at the plastics factory in Glasgow. The idea, then, that we could have a full public judge-led inquiry, while criminal prosecutions are taking place, and that it could conclude inside 12 months is completely fanciful—and the Labour party knows it. And by the way—[Interruption.] Calm down. That presents the House with a serious decision, because if we do not have the results of a broader inquiry, we will not be able to amend the banking Bill, when it is introduced into Parliament next January, in order to change the law and adopt the conclusions of the inquiry. We have one of two choices, then. We can either delay the inquiry—[Hon. Members: “Hooray!] We can either delay the introduction of the Vickers Bill or, as I say, we will not be able to amend it in this Parliament.

Changes to the Budget

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful for the Minister’s diplomacy, but let me say gently to the hon. Lady that the question was not quite as wide as the channel—but it was not far short of it!

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister confirm what extra information came to light during the recess that led to the U-turn on the charity tax?

[Mr Gauke]

In respect of all the measures we are discussing today, this Government have been listening to the arguments. As far as charities are concerned, once we had reached the conclusion that we would not proceed with a cap on relief for charitable giving, we felt it only fair to make the announcement as soon as we could—and we did so.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The point about women’s tax and independence is extremely important. Does my hon. Friend agree, following also the point made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), that the likely behavioural impact of the changes, which could include women being encouraged or coming under pressure not to work, is that they would contribute to higher female unemployment, which we know is at its highest since 1987?

[Helen Goodman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I was coming to that point. I want the Minister to address specifically the point about independent taxation of women. He was shaking his head earlier. I hope he will explain from the Dispatch Box in two minutes’ time how he can maintain it. My hon. Friend is right. As I said, there is an issue, thirdly, of complexity being added to the system.

Finally, the proposal is completely uneconomic. It will be bad for work incentives. People will think, “No, I’m not going to do extra hours.” There will be arguments in families about who does what. It will also mean that some people will refuse promotions. This is no way to make the British economy more efficient.