Living Standards: East of England

Chris Hinchliff Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered living standards in the East of England.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. As I will be discussing nature, water and the far right, I would like to declare interests that meet the relevant test. The first is my role as vice-chair of the climate and nature crisis caucus. The second is that I have received donations from Compass and Betterworld Ltd, which have supported my work on water. The third is support I have received from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung—try saying that after a few pints—to attend their parliamentarian forums on the far right. I have written about issues touched on in this debate—climate, water, the far right and economic growth—for The Guardian and Byline Times, which I have been paid for.

If we take an honest look at life in the east of England today, and in my city of Norwich, we do not see the prosperity that Governments have often boasted about. We see a region where too many people are running faster and faster just to stand still. In Norwich, wages remain below the national average. One in five workers earns less than the real living wage. One in six is trapped in insecure work—zero hours, agency or short-term scraps dressed up as jobs. Meanwhile, rents have risen by more than 20% since 2021. A quarter of private renters are handing over half or more of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. That is not prosperity; that is daylight robbery with a tenancy agreement.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Ind)]

I also find in my constituency that the cost of a decent home is far too high for far too many of my constituents. Does my hon. Friend agree that the solution to that problem is not, as is believed in some quarters, to give the developers the right to strip away our environment and destroy nature, but rather to get on with building the council housing that delivers the genuinely affordable homes our residents need?

[Clive Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for all his work in this area. Council homes are overwhelmingly the solution to this country’s housing problems. There is always space for private housing, for affordable housing and for housing associations, but it is council housing, built in a sustainable way, that will solve the housing crisis in this country. I agree with him that developers—not climate, nature or local democracy—are the block to building more houses here, and I am firm in making that point.

Public transport in my region is patchy at best. Broadband in rural Norfolk is slower than a tractor on a Sunday morning—people who live in Suffolk or Norfolk will know what I mean. Child poverty levels run at one in three in Norwich once housing costs are factored in and, although we are blessed with extraordinary landscapes, too many of our neighbours live in what I can only describe as nature deserts—no green space within walking distance, and no safe place for kids to play.