Budget Resolutions

Debate between Bob Blackman and Lucy Powell

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

The hon. Gentleman might groan, but he was not here for the better jokes at the beginning of my speech. In future, he needs to be here at the beginning of the wind-ups—that is one of the rules of this place.

If the Government’s record is anything to go by, they will deliver neither truly affordable homes nor levelling up. Their house building targets look dead in the water. Their definition of affordable is anything but, aligned with overheated markets, not with what people can actually afford. The Secretary of State made no mention of social housing in his speech; perhaps that is because he is projected to build only 6,000 new ones a year—far fewer than the number lost through the right to buy. The Secretary of State heralded the brownfield sites fund, yet he did not mention the fact that more than three quarters of that money currently goes to the south-east. That is hardly levelling up. Without reform of the arcane compulsory purchase order laws, too much of that cash will end up in the hands of the speculators who buy up land on the cheap.

For hard-pressed renters hit by the pandemic, we heard the Chancellor take credit for a small relief fund, but he failed to mention that he has also frozen local housing allowance again. Add that to the cut in universal credit and the almost 1 million renters who already face a gap between their income and housing costs now face real hardship. It is no wonder that we have seen homelessness rise on the Government’s watch—

[Bob Blackman]

indicated dissent.

[Lucy Powell]

I am afraid we have.

We heard nothing in the Budget about stamp duty—perhaps because the last stamp duty cut drove house price inflation and volatility, according to the OBR. [Interruption.] Government Members should look at the figures. The Chancellor fuelled a buy-to-let and second-home bonanza while first-time buyers lost out. The Government’s disastrous starter homes pilot scheme—non-starter homes, more like—promised 200,000 homes for first-time buyers and cost £170 million, yet it did not build a single starter home. The Government’s new pilot for first-time buyers, the first homes scheme, is not working, because as house prices rocket, the discount is all but wiped out. It is no wonder we have seen home ownership fall under this Government. Do Government Members want to say anything about that? No, because it has. The Conservatives can no longer claim to be the party of homeowners, nor of renters, because they have become the party of landowners, landlords and speculators.

The Government might have the soundbites, the slogans and the Instagram posts, but they do not have a plan. They cannot level up while they are scaling back; they cannot level up while growth forecasts are so down; they cannot level up while hiking up taxes and cutting universal credit; they cannot level up without addressing the housing crisis; and they cannot level up while denying children in the midlands and the north the chance to catch up, which is what they have done. Government Members might laugh about it this evening but it is absolutely shameful. Although the Government might talk the talk, time and again they do not walk the walk. Levelling up is fast becoming a rather empty campaign slogan, and this bitty, piecemeal Budget does not amount to more than the sum of its parts.