Tom Blenkinsop
Main Page: Tom Blenkinsop (Labour - Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)
Mr Pickles
The reaction of those on the Labour Benches clearly demonstrates that the previous policy was indeed a pantomime. We are determined to break through the hypocrisy that exists on social housing. In order to halve the existing waiting list, we would have had to spend about £50 billion. The Labour party produced a scheme that did not work. Ours goes with the natural flow of the housing market, and I am pleased to see chief officers of housing associations welcoming it and welcoming the flexibility. We will be able to implement many of the plans that the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) so gallantly pioneered, only to be stopped by the previous Prime Minister.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
T9. According to Allister Hayman of the Local Government Chronicle, regional development agency network liabilities have reached £1.5 billion and could rise as high as £2.5 billion. The Government plan a freeze on RDA spending beyond March 2011, which includes match funding, so how will this funding gap on Department for Communities and Local Government programmes partnered by the eight RDAs be met? Will the Government’s new local enterprise partnerships be adequately funded when they begin?
Mr Pickles
We are clearly examining the commitments made by RDAs. I express a high degree of disappointment that in the purdah period between the change of Government a number of contracts were entered into inappropriately. We will be doing our best to sort out that mess and see that the assets are returned to the new local enterprise partnerships. I must say that I am very disappointed at the irresponsible attitude that some RDAs displayed during that period.