Housing

Linda Riordan Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I should also like to welcome the Minister for Housing, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), to his new position.

The facts are stark. Millions of people are on waiting lists for social and affordable housing. New house building is down, there is little investment in the construction industry, and companies are crying out for policies that will kick-start their order books and the economies of local areas such as Halifax in order to get people back into work.

Over the past few months, I have been working with Marshalls plc, a company in my constituency, and the unions Unite and the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, to try to get new policies put in place to stimulate the economy. The construction industry, in which Marshalls is a major player, should be at the heart of any economic recovery. Indeed, on 3 July, I tabled an early-day motion calling on the Government to back the Get Britain Building campaign. The campaign has three simple but important aims. They are to encourage the building of affordable housing, the stimulation of home improvement with a cut in VAT and investment in infrastructure.

The Government should start to do those things today. Any economic recovery must be demand-led, with the construction industry at its heart. Such action could be a catalyst for economic recovery. I am sure that the Minister would acknowledge that every £1 invested generates £2.84 in economic activity. The message is simple: get building, and do it now. It cannot be right, in a country such as ours, for millions of people to be on the social housing waiting list. Any Government who want to call themselves progressive should measure their success or failure by their housing policies.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

We have hundreds of people on the waiting list in Ashfield. We need not only the new homes but the jobs as well. We are also lucky enough to have a lot of green spaces there, and we would like to keep them green. Does my hon. Friend agree that, wherever possible, it is always best to build those homes on brownfield sites?

[Mrs Riordan]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Many such brownfield sites have been identified as suitable for building on.

On the evidence of the past two years, the coalition Government are failing miserably. Since 2010, hardly any new houses have been built in Halifax and Calderdale. Indeed, only six new houses were built in the last quarter. It is no wonder that first-time buyers in my constituency are so frustrated. The lack of policies for growth in the north gives economic and social resources to the south, and the problem becomes one of a cycle of more job losses. I hear Conservative Members constantly calling for more growth-led policies in the south-east. If they think that the problem is bad within the M25, they should try heading north of the Watford Gap to see the effect of the lack of growth-led policies there.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I fear that the hon. Lady is being slightly disingenuous. After all, this Government have announced the biggest investment in transport infrastructure across the north of England. The northern hub will involve huge investment in railways, which will provide people in all parts of northern England with jobs that would not have existed under the previous Government.

[Mrs Riordan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that there is a vast difference between the transport infrastructure in the north and the south, but that is a matter that we have already debated today. We certainly need investment.

The lack of housing and the lack of stimulus are causing difficulties for my constituents. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hard-working, skilled people in Halifax who are looking for employment. It is time to give the businesses, especially construction firms, the necessary economic tools to get on with the job.

I have had hundreds of letters backing the Get Britain Building campaign. Dougie Wood and Chris Haigh are two men who are passionate about the company they work for. It was they and their colleagues who, through leading the campaign for Marshalls and Unite, led me to arrange a meeting with Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, during the recess. Following that meeting, there was a meeting with a member of the Chancellor’s team, together with the Marshalls director, Unite and the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians. We took with us a list of shovel-ready projects as suggested by the Governor of the Bank of England. We stressed that it is no good giving more money to banks that are not lending to companies such as Marshalls. The directors of Marshalls, a company based in Halifax for more than 130 years, stressed to both the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor’s team that times have never been as bad for the company in all its history as they are now.

I cannot work out whether the Government have fully grasped the nature of the social housing shortage. If they have, we really are in trouble, as nothing has been done about it in the last two years. If they have not, now is the time to increase the affordable housing budget, to tax the bankers’ bonuses and to get people, and especially young people, back into work. It is time for the Government to start listening, taking some action and investing in the housing industry, and to get places such as Halifax, which have been hit hard by the double-dip recession, working again.