amendment of the law

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I call Brian Donohoe.

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[Sarah Champion]

No, I am sorry.

Initially, I broadly welcomed the Government’s schemes to encourage people to buy new builds and to assist people with mortgage deposits. With the demise of building societies, banks have a virtual monopoly on mortgages. The percentage that is required for a deposit has been rising steadily, especially for first-time buyers. That has created an environment in which people who are more than able to pay for a mortgage cannot get one because the tens of thousands of pounds that they need for a deposit are unachievable.

However, I then started to consider the broader picture and the details of the schemes. First, it has been revealed that the Government’s mortgage scheme will not exclude people who are buying a second home. What about a third or a fourth home? How does that help people who are starting out? Not only are the Government pressing ahead with tax cuts for millionaires, it now seems that the mortgage scheme will help people, no matter how high their income, to buy a subsidised second home worth up to £600,000. Secondly, what interest rate will be charged, or will it be an interest-free loan? Thirdly, is it right that the taxpayer will effectively be underwriting the banks? The state will be facilitating banks to make profits on these mortgages.

My main question is, where are all the new homes for people to buy? The Government’s schemes mean that more people will be trying to buy the same number of houses. That will just push up the cost of a house unless more homes are built. The Government announced an extra £225 million for affordable house building, but according to the OBR only £125 million will be spent before 2015. That figure is dwarfed by the £4 billion cut in the funding for affordable housing that the Chancellor made in his first Budget. That stopped a very successful affordable housing scheme in Rotherham that was run by Transform South Yorkshire.

House building is at its lowest rate since the 1920s and the situation is getting worse. Housing starts fell by 11% in 2012 to below 100,000. The impact of that is that the Government have put 80,000 construction workers out of work and construction output has fallen by 8.2%.

Labour has proposed some practical measures to address that problem. We called on the Chancellor to use the money raised from the 4G mobile auction to build thousands of affordable homes to stimulate the economy and tackle the housing crisis. To improve the housing stock, we recommended that VAT on home repairs, maintenance and improvements should be cut to just 5%. To help young people who want to get on to the property ladder, the CBI’s proposal of a housing individual savings account should be considered. We also advocate giving first-time buyers a stamp duty holiday on properties worth up to £250,000. Finally, I support Labour’s recommendation to bring forward long-term infrastructure investment in schools, roads and transport to get construction workers back to work and to strengthen our economy.

Those measures would boost growth, get builders back to work building the homes that we need, and create apprenticeships for young people. I urge the Government to look more closely at the details of their schemes and to find ways to build more affordable homes and genuinely help first-time buyers. We need action now to get Britain building and to kick-start our economy.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank Sarah Champion for taking less time than she was allowed, which will mean that other Members can get in.

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[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

They say, “If you tell a big enough lie and repeat it constantly, people will believe it”—and that is what the Tory-led Government have done. We are constantly told that the last Labour Government left the biggest debt in the developed world. That is an odd thing to say when the Chancellor admitted to the Treasury Committee in 2011 that he did not even know that the UK had the lowest debt in the G7.

Of course the UK will have a higher debt and deficit than some other countries, and Government Members often make a comparison with Greece, but Greece has a totally different economy from ours; we are the sixth largest in the world. Of course our debt will be higher than Greece’s, but the real figure to look at—one that relates to economic competence—is the ratio of GDP to national debt.

Let me remind the House—I know Government Members have a collective amnesia about this—that in 1997, when the Labour Government came to power, the national debt was 42% of GDP; after 11 years of the Labour Government and before the global recession of 2008, the ratio of GDP to national debt was 35%. That is a reduction of 11%, and it was not achieved by a Government who were financially incompetent. In fact, that Government achieved an even greater reduction than the Conservatives.

The second claim that we hear is that Labour created the biggest deficit in the developed world by overspending. If that was the case, why did Germany, Japan, the United States and other similar economies have a problem? Why did they have banking crises? Why were they not in deficit? We know the answer. We know that there were global economic problems. We know that the financial crisis began in the United States with the sub-prime mortgages. In fact, it was a former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), who took a bold initiative, saving our banking systems and, subsequently, saving half a million jobs as well.

Those are not just my views. The International Monetary Fund concluded that

“the UK experienced an increase in the deficit as result of a large loss in output/GDP caused by the global banking crisis and not even as result of the bank bailouts, fiscal stimulus and bringing forward of capital spending. It’s basic economics: when output falls the deficit increases.”

The deficit increase was not due to any of the actions taken by the Labour Government. In fact, all those actions made the economy better, and saved more jobs. In contrast, this Government’s policies over the past three years have done nothing to help the economy to grow.

Another reason for our financial loss was the fact that we are one of the main financial centres in the world. Given that there was a global banking crisis, of course we were likely to take the hit more than other countries. We should also bear in mind that up to 2008, while Labour was in power, the actual borrowing costs were low. Indeed, they are still low. That is because in the United Kingdom our bonds are strong and are performing well, because people know that the Bank of England is there to step in if there is any problem, and, of course, because over the last 300 years the UK has never defaulted on its debt. The Government try to blame austerity, saying, “We must introduce all these measures because we need to balance the books,” but the truth is that they are using austerity as a justification for downsizing the state, which, in ideological terms, the Conservative-led government have always wanted to do.

Even the Chancellor’s budget deficit programme is not working. Everyone knows that a budget deficit occurs when expenditure exceeds income, but one way of securing income is taxation, direct or indirect. When people are being laid off and are not working, they are paying no taxes. They are having to be supported by a benefits system, which is why—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am terribly sorry, but the hon. Lady’s time is up.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I hope to be able to call Members who wish to speak, but to assist the House I should state that the winding up speeches will start no later than 9.36 pm.

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[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

The coalition Government have spent their time in office since 2010 telling us over and over again that they are trying to get the country’s finances in order. We have had their austerity, their new taxes and their extreme cuts, and yet two years later, our borrowing is still growing at an alarming rate. Despite the Government’s austerity, the Chancellor is expected to add billions to the national debt over his five years in office. Since his spending review in 2010, the UK economy has grown by just 0.7%, compared with the 5.3% forecast at the time.

Last year, the UK economy went through a double-dip recession. The Government’s failure on deficit and debt reduction is colossal. Lack of growth has meant huge Government borrowing to pay for the cost of their economic failure. The Chancellor has failed the test he set for himself. The economy is flatlining, prices are rising a lot faster than wages, the deficit is going up, and the UK has lost its triple A credit rating. Instead of delivering a credible Budget that demands confidence in our economy, the Chancellor delivered a downgraded Budget with no plan for jobs and growth, and a Budget that hits hard-working households further.

A wiser Chancellor would have been less dogmatic about the rightness of his policies and so left room to manoeuvre when he saw them failing. However, last Wednesday’s Budget was the work of a Chancellor who is in a hole but continues to pretend that the only way forward is to keep digging. We needed bold and decisive action last week, and a Budget that would kick-start the economy and help millions of people up and down the country who have been struggling to cope financially. I wonder whether Government Members know what that means: it means broken Britain, it means businesses closing their doors, it means small communities struggling to create local growth, it means a choice between paying the bedroom tax and eating, and it means national failure at the hands of this Government.

In my constituency, more than 1,000 people are being referred to local food banks. Food banks in 21st-century Britain is the reality of this coalition. Instead of borrowing to help millionaires, the Government should be borrowing to help jobs and opportunities, and to stimulate economic growth across the country. The Chancellor could have brought forward infrastructure investment in schools, roads and transport to get construction workers back to work and to strengthen our economy for the future. Those measures would boost growth, get builders back to work, build the homes we desperately need and create apprenticeships for our young people.

Britain needs a radical Budget for homes, jobs and growth, not another false dawn. We face the biggest housing crisis in a generation and the Government’s housing and economic policies are just making it worse. House building is crucial to economic recovery. Helping families to get on to the housing ladder should be a priority for the Government, and that is why we have been calling for this action for more than two years. The Government’s record on housing offers little hope to hard-working families who are struggling to get on to the housing ladder. Under this Government, house building has fallen, rents have risen, home ownership is becoming a harder goal for young people to achieve and, most worrying of all, homelessness has risen. The Government failed to back Labour’s call to use the money raised from the 4G mobile spectrum auction to build 100,000 affordable homes to stimulate the economy and help tackle the ever-growing housing crisis. The Chancellor could also improve existing housing stock by cutting VAT on home repairs, maintenance and improvements to 5%. I might add, however, that without a job it is impossible to buy a home or to improve it.

Next month’s planned tax cut for millionaires should be scrapped. When the Government came to power in 2010, the message was that we are all in this together. I wonder if my constituents who have lost their jobs and the millions who rely on food banks would agree that we are all in this together. What about the millionaires looking forward to a tax cut? Well, they are definitely in it all together.

Companies are not investing and people are not spending because they lack confidence in the UK economy. Economic confidence comes from believing that tomorrow will be better than today. The problem the Government have created is that the country no longer believes in a better tomorrow. In short, we desperately need a Labour Chancellor to deliver a Budget that supports hard-working families and struggling businesses. We need a Government who have a long-term plan for jobs and growth to build a better and fairer tomorrow.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank Members for their co-operation. We now will get the last two Members in.