Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Friday 20th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

No one is arguing about the pace, because the time it will take local authorities to come up with a local plan will differ. I think most of us agree—although clearly not everyone does—that every local authority ought to have a plan. If they do not, are they taking responsibility for their local community? On that, we have a different view.

We will give new powers to local authorities to create housing growth areas and new homes corporations, so that they can assemble land and work with builders—small and large—construction firms and self-builders to get more homes built.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Mayor of London is undermining the social housing target by watering it down and making it an aspiration? In contrast, our policy is to set private developers a target on social housing and intermediate development of between 25% and 40%. Surely the Mayor of London is undermining any attempt to deal with the housing shortage, leading, frankly, to the social cleansing of people who cannot afford to buy houses that are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we have heard in this debate, the problem is most acute in London. The consequences of not building sufficient affordable homes are being felt in many ways, such as in the number of people who are privately renting, in higher rents that people cannot afford and in the housing benefit bill. Ultimately, it is a self-defeating approach.

One problem is that the process of house building has been far too passive for local authorities in many parts of the country. They identify the land and then hope that someone will come along with a proposal. The Lyons review is about creating the means—the tools—for local authorities. I bet Ministers wish that they had applied their minds and come up with a report like the Lyons review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

The Budget painted a distorted picture of our society—one that people living in constituencies such as mine will struggle to recognise. There are low wages, almost 1 million people are not in employment or training, some 750,000 young people are still unemployed and the average family is £1,200 a year worse off under this Government.

The Chancellor told us that the sun was shining. I do not know what planet he is from, but the sun is certainly not shining for most people across the east end, where my constituency is situated. The idea is at best hollow and at worst insulting to people who are struggling, people who are having to rely on food banks and people who are struggling to pay their bills, yet the Chancellor has the nerve to say that the sun is shining. Perhaps it is shining on his friends, but it is not shining on the vast majority of people in this country, who are struggling to make ends meet.

The Chancellor’s proposals will mean further cuts in health, education, social care and many other public services. He boasted of a “truly national recovery”, yet in my constituency and across the nation, people are simply not feeling that recovery. They are feeling the squeeze on their living standards and they are feeling deeply stressed because they are working incredibly hard but their salaries are not rising.

Child poverty has been rising over recent years. In my constituency, the rate of child poverty has risen to become the highest in the country. One in two children now lives in poverty. That is a disgrace. That situation is affecting millions of families around the country, yet this Government have failed to deal with the challenge of child poverty. They have redefined child poverty rather than tackled its root causes.

Some 22,000 people in my constituency and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) are stuck on housing waiting lists. Week in, week out, we meet people who are stuck with disabled family members who need appropriate housing, but who cannot be rehoused because the Government are not building enough social housing, not just in London but around the country.

We also face high long-term unemployment, with long-term youth unemployment across the board at 30%. Youth unemployment for ethnic minority young people has risen in the past five years by 50%. That is a disgrace and it shows that the Government do not care about inequalities across racial groups. They pay lip service, but do nothing about the substantive inequalities they have presided over. They have watered down anti-discrimination legislation and cut the budgets of equality agencies that regulate discrimination. The Government need to think again about the massive racial and social-class inequalities that are affecting people around the country. They have done nothing to help those who face the burden of child care costs, and they have failed to deal with the many young people who are desperately looking for appropriate training and work. It would have been a great help had they said to young people, “We will give you a job guarantee and the appropriate training so that you can get an opportunity and a foot on the ladder.”

We need a much better proposition for the vast majority of people in our country who are still struggling and cannot see any hope or light at the end of the tunnel, despite the Chancellor’s reference to the sun shining. What they see and have experienced is a bleak proposition and future, and the Government have promised yet more cuts to the very services and help that those people desperately need to provide the springboard for them to succeed. The Government have said nothing about the need to tackle the millions of people now working on zero-hours contracts.

Hundreds of carers came to see me this week. They are looking after people but are on zero-hours contracts, do not have proper recognition, and are not being paid properly. This Government have closed Sure Start centres up and down the country, and many more will close because of their proposals to make stringent cuts, due to their ideological obsession with slashing and burning. That has not changed, even though we heard a lot during the last election about a new kind of Cameron Government—a compassionate Conservative Government. That is utter nonsense, and the people of our country can see the true colours of this Tory Government, despite the so-called progressive influence of their Liberal Democrat friends, which is frankly a scandal. The Liberal Democrats propped up a Government who have been vicious in their impact on communities across the country, including in my community and across the east end.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) said, we have been trying to fight off cuts to GPs surgeries—five were at risk of closing and we had to take to the streets to stop them closing for just two more years, although they may still close because the Government have not provided any assurances. Some 99 surgeries across the country are affected, including 22 in the east end where health inequality is scandalously high, yet the Government’s Health and Social Care Act 2012 failed to make tackling that one of their key objectives.

We have had to fight the closure of police stations. Yesterday I went to campaign for Matthew O’Callaghan in the constituency of the Education Secretary. Her constituents were saying that local police stations have closed and local council offices are used for people to make complaints that would otherwise have been made to the police. That must be done during office hours, so in an emergency there is nowhere to go, and nowhere to report a crime and receive a crime reference number for serious incidents. That is in the Education Secretary’s constituency. In other areas lights are being switched off, which is affecting women’s safety, including in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

As my hon. Friend has said, constituencies such as ours face record cuts to further education. Nationally there are some £70 million of cuts to further education colleges, which 4 million people attend. I know that they will be rallying with their teachers, trade unions and anyone who will support them to tell those seeking election this May that their rights and needs must be understood. Parliamentary candidates, whoever they are, need to show that they care about the education of those 4 million people who attend further education colleges. This Government have slashed and burned, and ruined the hopes of those people. I call on people to take action and ensure that every parliamentary candidate prioritises the needs of their education and training. If they do not, people must ensure that parties and candidates who are not willing to support adult education and give people hope are shown at the ballot box that a difference can be made and that people’s political power is vital and will be exercised. That is 4 million members of the electorate. I hope the Government take note of their power because they will use it and demonstrate that it is not okay for the Government to come in, slash and burn, and cut off the hopes and aspirations of 4 million people who go to further education colleges.

The IFS has said there has been little detail about the cuts that the Government propose, but the poorest will bear the brunt of the likely cuts in public services. I hope the Government will set out exactly where they will make cuts, because up and down the country people are desperately worried that the cuts will fall on the NHS or local schools. The Government have already said that they will cut across budgets, including in education, and we must know where those cuts will be made. It would be fundamentally dishonest of the Government not to set out where they will be. I hope that the Government will be straight with the public and not try to deceive them—[Interruption.] If Conservative Members want to say something they should have the courage to do so; otherwise they should keep quiet. The public have heard enough from the Government and are fed up with them, as are Labour Members.

There are two visions of what is at stake in the coming weeks ahead of the general election. The Government’s plan is to impose deeper cuts over the next four years and put public services such as the national health service in harm’s way. That means more homelessness, more food banks, and less protection for the elderly who need care. It means more poverty, inequality, social division and social disunity. It means a much harsher society—I remember that clearly from when I was a child in the ’80s and we had to live during the Thatcherite period. It means a society where people are left behind in their millions. That is not the society Labour wants.

We propose a society that is united, has inclusive growth, and where we look out for those who are less well-off, give people hope and support their aspirations—a society where we invest in training and education so that our future growth is dependent on those who succeed, through investing in their education and giving people support and the opportunity to contribute to our country. It means investing in our national health service so that those who need care can get it, rather than having to rely on a poor service because we are not investing in health care—the NHS is still considered the best value health care in the world, and we should be proud of what we have achieved as a country. We must ensure that we support those who earn the least by investing in a national minimum wage, and support parents through child care. I hope that on 7 May people will look at those two visions and see ours as a progressive inclusive vision that will unite our country.