Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome my hon. Friend to her place. Indeed, this is not just a failure of home ownership. There has been over a decade of Tory failures on housing. We have seen home ownership decrease. We have seen rough sleeping and homelessness increase. We have seen council house waiting lists increase. We have seen the failure to deal with the Grenfell tragedy, and, in the wake of that tragedy, the failure to ensure that all homes are safe, so does my hon. Friend agree that there is a litany of failures, not just on home ownership?

[Lucy Powell]

I very much agree, and when I made some of those points earlier, it was met with silence from Government Members.

In conclusion, the dream of having a secure, safe and affordable home is a powerful one, and rightly so. Housing is much more than an investment or a commodity. Homes are the places we grow up in, the places we grow old in. How safe and secure they are shapes who we are—the opportunities we can take, the freedoms we have, the successes and happiness we share—but for too many in this country after 11 years of a Conservative Government that has become a pipe dream. The Government’s market-driven ethos just will not create the homes we need, and for people trapped in buildings with dangerous cladding that dream has become twisted and has become a waking nightmare. Today we can start to fix that at least, and I hope Members from all parts of the House will join me in supporting our amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

What we needed to hear from the Government was a plan to build our way out of the pandemic. Instead, we have heard a litany of missed opportunities.

On housing, we have a mounting crisis. We need new sustainable homes that working people can afford. We need to tackle the scandal of homelessness and ensure that support services are available. In Slough, because of funding cuts, we had already lost our citizens advice bureau. Now we are losing our local Shelter headquarters, too—lifelines of support for so many. In the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, we urgently need to tackle unsafe cladding. We needed a plan for housing. Where is it?

On education, a generation of children have had their education disrupted. Children without computers, wi-fi or desks have been held back. University and college students have seen academic life torn to shreds, facing uncertainty about their futures. We needed a plan for education and young people. Where is it?

We needed a plan to rebuild the jobs market to make work pay, to make jobs secure and to recognise the seismic changes to the world of work brought about by technology and the pandemic. We needed to hear the Government’s plan to end fire and rehire. Where is it?

We needed action to support those on universal credit who face a real-terms cut to their income. They will be made destitute by the £20 a week reduction and they need a lifeline. Nothing from Ministers—another missed opportunity.

We needed a plan for the NHS to properly reward NHS workers, not punish them with a pay cut. In fact, health and social care workers missed out on a combined staggering £400 million by earning below the living wage. They deserve much better.

What about transport? We needed a plan for green transport. We need answers on the issues with Hitachi trains. Slough constituents want action on the western rail link to Heathrow, which again seems to have been kicked into the long grass. We must do more to support the aviation industry, which has long supported the livelihoods of so many in my Slough constituency.

And don’t even get me started on the mere nine words the Government could muster on social care! Where is the Prime Minister’s long-promised, oven-ready plan for social care?

In conclusion, the Queen’s Speech presented the perfect opportunity to transform our public services and rebuild our economy to create the jobs and build the homes we so desperately need. Instead, we have a Government Queen’s Speech which lets down the people of Slough and our nation.