Cost of Living

Simon Hart Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Given his experience in the university of life, would the hon. Gentleman recognise, albeit grudgingly, that some people who have done particularly well in our society are major employers and major taxpayers in the UK, so they should be viewed as positive contributors, not the negative contributors that he portrays?

[Sir Bob Russell]

I appreciate that intervention, because my point was that the problem was not necessarily the content but the presentation, and the perception of millions of people out there that the Government were interested only in the rich. I endorse the hon. Gentleman’s point and hope that he will endorse my observation.

Increasing the personal allowance to £9,205 takes us within touching distance of the Liberal Democrats’ No. 1 manifesto pledge to ensure that no one pays any tax on the first £10,000 of earnings. I hope that that figure will be reached or, better still, raised even further in the next Budget. That would be good for the cost of living of those with limited financial means.

For most people, the most significant cost is that of housing, whether it be a mortgage or rent. One does not have to be an economic wizard to know that the more of the family budget is spent on housing, the less will be available to be spent on all other aspects of the cost of living. If the rent or mortgage goes up there is less money to be spent, and that has an impact on the economy, particularly the local economy.

I will concentrate my remarks on rent, because the subject of social housing—that is the current terminology, although I prefer the concept of democratically accountable council housing, given that successive post-war Labour and Conservative Governments strove to outdo each other in the building of hundreds of thousands of homes—has interested me throughout my political life, the 42nd consecutive year of which, in my home town, began this week.

As a nation, we need to follow the excellent record of successive Labour and Conservative Governments in the 35 years or so that followed the second world war, and to put right the damage inflicted by successive Conservative and Labour Governments from around 1983 onwards. I look to the coalition Government to follow the lead of the Governments of Attlee and Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson and Heath, Callaghan, and Thatcher in her first Parliament. It is a startling fact that the Thatcher Government built more council houses for families than new Labour managed to build in 13 years.

We need to build council houses today, on publicly available land. That would help to boost the economy, create jobs and provide decent homes for the hundreds of thousands of families living in accommodation that is not suitable for their needs. I am grateful to the National Housing Federation, whose East of England bulletin states:

“155,900 households are on social housing waiting lists in the East of England, one in 16 of all households in the region, and a 59% increase since 2000.”

Let me issue one caveat. We must not, in the process, sacrifice the special greenfield sites that provide a positive contribution to the quality of people’s lives.

I merely ask that the coalition seeks to follow the post-war consensus of politicians from all parties: people who had grown up in the terrible times of the 1920s and 1930s and who, in post-war Britain, knew that providing decent family homes would transform lives. Incidentally, I have no objection to the right to buy provided that each house sold is replaced by a new house, and I understand that that is the policy of the coalition. I invite Ministers to read the report of the housing debate that I led in Westminster Hall on 11 June 2003. Sadly, new Labour failed to take action, and I urge the coalition Government to do so.

I also invite Ministers to look at the Education Act 1944. On studying it, I realised that it was about more than just teaching, and that it adopted an holistic approach to the upbringing of children. It dealt with education, of course, but also with such matters as school health, dental checks and school meals. The architects of that Act recognised the importance of bringing everything together. If we are to succeed with a jigsaw, we need to fit the pieces for the corners and edges first, and the same applies to the jigsaw of life. If a decent home is provided for a family, the other pieces of the jigsaw of life are more likely to fall into place.

All this has a bearing on the cost of living, because if people have a decent home at an affordable rent, they will have money to spend in local shops and on local services. It is not a cap on housing benefit but a cap on rents that we need. While building council houses is the mid to long-term solution, a cap on rents is the immediate requirement.

The private sector and housing associations—the latter being dependent on public money—have not been able to fill the gap caused by the near-collapse of council house building under successive Governments over the past 30 years. Private landlords have made a killing and tenants have been given a worse deal at a much higher cost, much of it coming from the public purse. Public money is far better invested in public housing than lining the pockets of those who have become property millionaires courtesy of the publicly funded housing benefit regime. If a family’s housing benefit is cut, they have less money to spend on food, clothing, energy bills, local services and so on. The landlord still gets an inflated rent—or the family is forced to move. I call the latter economic cleansing. The local economy also has less money circulating because tenants spend more on rent and less on local purchases.

At the weekend, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and England footballer Steven Gerrard called for better knowledge of food nutrition to be made part of the national curriculum. However, before getting carried away with this good idea, I have concerns that the school meal service is not what it used to be, and I fear that Government policies are not helping the needs of many children. I urge Ministers not to damage the school meal service even more.

I return to the good idea from Messrs Oliver and Gerrard. What would be even better is if first aid training also became part of the national curriculum, as I called for in a ten-minute rule Bill that I put to the House on 19 November 2003. Both ideas should be incorporated. The case I made nine years ago is arguably even stronger today. By the way, earlier this month the all-party parliamentary group on first aid was formed, and I have the honour of being its first chairman.

If every child in this country knew first aid and, over time, took this knowledge into adult life, the national health service would make huge savings. As I said when I introduced my Bill, it would

“save many hundreds of lives every year, produce annual savings to the national health service of hundreds of millions of pounds and result in a better quality of life for all age groups throughout the land.”—[Official Report, 19 November 2003; Vol. 413, c. 808.]

It would lead to savings in people’s spending, because they would be more knowledgeable about what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. Today, an increasing number of children suffer from obesity, but I fear the prospect of a return to many children being under-nourished, because they are becoming the innocent victims of rises in the cost of living. Our Government must not allow this to happen.

I shall support the coalition Government in the Lobby this evening and tomorrow, but I urge Ministers to look at what was achieved on the housing front by Governments between 1945 and the early 1980s, and seek to emulate them.