Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,726 lines we hold for Mr Clive Betts, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 80 of 95.
“Skills and capacity in the construction industry are relevant. The last thing that we want, after the present collapse in house building, is not to be able to bring it back. That happened in the recession at the end of the 1980s and 1990s. The industry took an awfully long time to come back, because the skills had gone. We may eventually get some skills recycled from the Olympic sites in the south. We probably will not get the same number of people from eastern Europe as we have had, because those economies are starting to improve in the longer term and real wages are growing in the countries in question. We may not be able to rely on Poles and Czechs to come and build, as they were doing before the credit crunch. We must think about how to retain skills and bring more skills into the industry, as a matter of urgency.”
“It is crucial that, as well as dealing with the issues of social rented housing on which I have concentrated, we should get some money back into the mortgage market. It is not just a matter of using the retail savings; we need to get the wholesale market moving, and clearly, at present, that is not happening. The concern is not only that the money is not available, but that the rates of interest being charged are starting to rise. Five-year fixed rates have gone up by about two percentage points in the past month, and those were the most attractive rates. In the current circumstances, a high cost on fixed or variable rates is probably a bit worrying for many people, particularly if they fear losing their job or have already lost it, or are on short-time working. Getting that money back into the mortgage market is crucial.”
“John Heron of the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association told the Select Committee that although the association was “impressed with the Asset-backed Guarantee Scheme that was announced and subsequently introduced, it is a great shame that it falls short of its objectives.” He said: “There is only so much risk that a government-sponsored scheme can reasonably take, and that is the position they are in, but the problem with that is that it is rather like half a leap across a chasm: very impressive but doomed to failure.” The Government are halfway there, but currently the scheme is not working. I accept that it is a Treasury responsibility to deal with the matter, but I hope that the Minister has been listening and will go straight to knock on the Treasury door to see whether improvement to the scheme can be made quicker.”
“I hope that the Government will come forward soon, having previously announced an intention to act, with measures to deal with the problem of private tenants who unwittingly find that they are in a property that is going to be repossessed, where the lender did not know that a tenancy had been created. The tenants are there in all good faith but have virtually no standing in law at present. That is an important issue on which we need to act. Finally, I want to emphasise three issues that emerged from the report. First, in our second report, we came back to the asset-backed securities guarantee scheme. Everyone thought that the Government acted with commendable speed to the Crosby review, but unfortunately did not get the answer quite right, because the scheme is not working.”
“The Committee was concerned, in the initial report, about whether the protocol would work. However, because of the fall in the number of repossessions forecast by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, there is probably more confidence now that the protocol may be ameliorating some of the worst effects. Ways are being found, with the deferment of interest payments, to help people who are in difficulties whose homes might have been repossessed in past recessions. The bringing forward of help through the support for mortgage interest scheme—it now starts at three months, rather than nine months—has undoubtedly saved many people from getting into even worse debt, and that is welcome, too. I have already commented on the mortgage rescue scheme.”
“I agree that the decent homes programme is a major step forward, but ALMOs want to move on now and ensure that they have the resources to maintain their stock to those high standards—even to improve them, particularly by energy-saving measures. They also want to build new homes. The Minister spoke to us about the need for equity in financial arrangements between those authorities that have not carried out stock transfers and those that have and about the ability that he hopes to develop for authorities to borrow prudentially against the rental streams from their homes, which would enable the new building to happen. That is an interesting development, which can put more money into social rented housing in the future and take us on from our current position. The Government have acted well on repossessions.”
“The Minister told the Committee the other day that he might have to get the agreement of all councils, because of the need to transfer debt between them; however, he said he might look at allowing those councils that wanted to become involved in the arrangements, after the two-month consultation period, to opt for the new scheme even if all authorities had not come in and primary legislation was needed to bring them in. I hope that the Minister will consider that, because speed is of the essence and we do not want ALMOs to start to unravel because of financial problems and the inherent instability of the current system.”
“I pressed for a long time for the decision, which will give local authorities—particularly those with arm’s length management organisations—greater certainty. The other day, I chaired a meeting of the all-party group on arm’s length management organisations, and the message that came across clearly was that we need stability for ALMOs; they are an excellent development that brings tenants more into the management of homes, but many tenants are concerned about their instability, because of the complications of the housing revenue account and their inability to plan financially for the longer term. Tenants have got the message, and the officers who came from ALMOs all over the country said that the quicker that the reform could be achieved the better, because it would provide enough financial certainty for things to move on.”
“As things stand, they’re just going to tread water on that housing list and never move anywhere near the top of it.” I thoroughly understand that if people are homeless, with children, in priority need and not intentionally homeless, they must be found a home, but there must be a better way to allocate properties than by saying that, because they are in immediate need, they get whatever house is available in any area, at the expense of people who have been waiting for that area for good personal reasons and for a long time. The Government have got that right, and it will be interesting to see the guidance and local authorities’ response. I welcome the housing revenue account decision. We had a good sitting of the Select Committee, with the Housing Minister, the other day.”
“We’re really upset because someone has just moved in as homeless, and we understand from talking to them that they have only been on the housing list for two weeks. Our children have been on it for 12 years. Why”—this is just the way that people think—“couldn’t they have had the home that my children want to leave, so that they could move near us?”
“I accept that there are differences in different parts of the country, and I have explained my understanding of the even greater pressures in parts of London, but I have had concerns for a long time—the new Housing Minister and the Secretary of State recognise them—about people being on the waiting list for years and never getting the priority that would enable them to secure the homes that become available. The classic case is something that happens regularly. People come to my surgery and say, “Mr. Betts, a house has come up down the road, and our children would like to move into it, so we can look after the grandchildren. They currently live five miles away, so it’s all a bit difficult.”
“We know that there are uncertainties about future public finances, and we always hear that health and education are a priority—the Leader of the Opposition certainly makes that clear, although the Opposition then talk about reductions in public expenditure, so we get the horrible feeling that housing might be one of the areas where they are talking about making reductions. We must make it clear not only that social and rented housing is a priority for us now, but that it will continue to be so in the future. Allocations are a difficult issue, but I was pleased with the Government’s announcement the other day.”
“It is Liberal Democrat controlled, but all five Labour MPs in the city put a letter in our local paper, The Star , the other day saying that social housing is an absolute priority. We said that we could work on the issue across the political divide and that we were prepared to offer the council any support and assistance that we could when it bids for Government money, because housing is crucial for the people whom we represent. In our report, we raise another question, which the Minister probably cannot answer today. A new programme of council house building cannot just be a quick fix for our current economic crisis and housing problems. There is a long-term problem with providing more social housing, and councils must play a real role in tackling it in the long term. We would like a commitment from the Government on that.”
“People often say, “Look at the high-rises that were built,” but they probably forget that councils tended to build to Government direction in those days, and it was a national policy that sent us down that route. However, councils also built many attractive houses, and I hope that we can get into that business again. There will be a bit of a learning curve for many authorities, and it will take a bit of time to get the process going. However, councils must be prepared to put their land in for free. If the Government are putting in social housing grant, councils must make a financial contribution, too. I have certainly encouraged Sheffield city council to do that.”
“They may also want to move near a grandparent who can look after the kids, so that they and their partner can work—that has become increasingly common over the years. However, I sit there thinking, “They’ve got a very strong case, but so had the last three people I saw, and none of them is probably going to get re-housed in the foreseeable future.” The need for social rented housing is there and it has become greater. Our latest report therefore welcomes the Government’s extra £1.5 billion, which comes on top of the money that was previously made available. That extra money has been offered to local authorities to build homes for rent, and it is great even in principle that we are building council houses again. Some of us remember the days when we had major house building programmes, and they were not all disasters.”
“I probably will not have as many absolutely disastrous cases as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury—however bad the position is in the south of Sheffield, it is even worse in the south of Islington—but I have an awful lot of very bad cases. My heart sinks, just as my hon. Friend’s does, when somebody walks into my surgery and says, “Mr. Betts, we’ve got this really serious housing case. Can you sort it out for us?” They will go through all the facts, and I will sit there listening. I will say “I absolutely agree with you. We should be able to house you. I see your circumstances.” They may want to live near a parent with real caring needs, or their bus route may have changed, so they have to move to keep their job.”
“With the credit crunch, people who might have bought a couple of years ago cannot buy or choose not to do so, so demand for social housing has gone up even further. At CLG questions the other day, I mentioned the case of Katie Wilson, who is one of my constituents. She tried all the Government schemes to get part-ownership of a house, and she failed at every hurdle. Eventually, she had to fall back on her position on the waiting list, which she has been on for about 17 years. She simply wants a home to rent in the part of the city where she grew up and where her family lives. That is not a big thing to ask for. She now informs me that she is renting privately for £500 a month, which is quite a lot for people on low incomes and quite a high rent for Sheffield. The problem is repeated elsewhere.”
“At one stage a few years ago, the Liberal Democrat council was actually knocking council houses down, which seems rather a mistake in hindsight, and it is now looking to build houses on the same sites. That happened in the north of the city, but the south, where my constituency is located, has always had a greater shortage of social housing. We have not traditionally had as many large council estates, and many of the estates are very attractive, so large numbers of people have exercised the right to buy. Even before the credit crunch, therefore, housing need was very real and was often unmet. People are now waiting longer and longer to gain access to a home that meets their needs.”
“The fall in demand for housing has led to a dramatic decline in house building, but we argue in our reports that the need for housing is just as great as it was one or two years ago, even though there is lack of immediate demand because people cannot afford homes that they could have bought a year ago or because they are concerned about their future. There has also been a switch in the nature of immediate demand. For a long time, most people would look to buy, and that is what the Government focused on. There has been great excess demand for a long time, and as we were reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), there has been a chronic shortage of social housing to rent in many parts of the country. That is also true of my constituency. The position in Sheffield has been variable.”
“I begin where the Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) left off—with the Homes and Communities Agency. Obviously, the agency was not created to deal with the present crisis, but thank goodness that it was created. Along with the Tenant Services Authority, it has been proactive in at least ameliorating the damage that has been done in the current difficult situation. The reality is there for all to see: some people cannot get mortgages; others are worried about the future of their jobs, so they are concerned about moving home or buying their first home.”
“In the hon. Gentleman’s comments so far, we have been given a very general picture. He has said that the Opposition are in favour of more social housing and that we cannot have a top-down approach, but I have not heard him say how, if there are going to be spending cuts under a future Conservative Government and if health and education spending will be completely protected, funds will be available to build the social rented housing for which he is arguing.”
“I was waiting in expectation for a commitment to fund social housing. Apart from the incentive for local communities, I did not hear one. Is there a commitment on the number of social houses that will be funded? Despite the hon. Gentleman’s lack of love for top-down targets, a future Government would presumably have a target. What will happen if these bottom-up local initiatives do not produce the number of houses that are needed by people in this country?”
“Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many tenants are rather pleased that the new authority is taking the time and trouble to listen to what they think? When it puts its monitoring arrangements in place to monitor what standards have been achieved by housing associations, arm’s length management organisations and others, it will surely want to ensure that those monitoring arrangements are worked out so that the tenants’ view of the standard of service that they are getting is reflected. That is its core mission, and I think that it is going about things from the start in a very admirable way.”
“Will my right hon. Friend confirm that giving more priority to people with local needs is not about race but about trying to help people such as Katie Wilson, in my constituency, who has been on the waiting list for 17 years and simply wants to be housed in the community where she was brought up, where her family and friends are? It is about allowing people to move near grandparents so that they can support the children and allow the parents to go out to work. It is those sorts of issues that are important and they are currently not given sufficient priority in the allocation systems.”
“I am sorry that I cannot be with my hon. Friend for the whole of this debate. I congratulate her on succeeding in securing it. As well as the reduction of congestion and the benefits to the economy, does she accept that there would also be major benefits to the environment from two of those projects? First, electrification of the midland main line would result in a cleaner railway and, secondly, high-speed rail lines serving both sides of the country would, we hope, attract people away from short-haul air transport. That would benefit the environment considerably.”
“I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Speaker, and hope that I shall catch your eye on many future occasions. I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that one of the most congested parts of the motorway network is the M1 south of Sheffield, where a large number of accidents occur. Steps are being taken to widen the M1 between junctions 25 and 28, and consideration is being given to either widening it or introducing hard-shoulder running up to junction 34. Will my hon. Friend assure me that whatever scheme is adopted, variable speed limits will be introduced on that section of the motorway so that we can reduce congestion, ensure smoother running at peak periods and, in particular, lower the high levels of pollution around Tinsley, in my constituency?”
“Can the hon. Lady explain her party’s policy on transitional relief? By definition, at some point that comes to an end. Is she saying that it should always last for five years, instead of four? Does she accept that, given the ability to defer part of the rate increase, 60 per cent. of the transitional relief, which ends in the fifth year, can be deferred to the next two years?”
“Surely the hon. Lady recognises that, at the end of the day, the effect of the revaluation is neutral. It is simply a matter of distributing the total business rate to be collected between the various properties. The fact that the revaluation was carried out during an economic boom will not lead to more money being collected in rates.”
“Over the long term, council services, even with efficiency savings, are always likely to need more money spent on them year on year than RPI, because wages at local council level are likely to go up faster than RPI. If the business rate is held down at RPI, it is likely to contribute a smaller and smaller amount towards the payment of council services. That is why, over time, businesses have not done too badly. Finally—”
“This country differs from many others in the EU, such as Germany, which has a much bigger incentive to look positively at development because the benefits of the taxes generated by it come back to the community in which it takes place. That is a big issue that needs addressing. My right hon. Friend dealt adequately with the other issues. Yes, 5 per cent. inflation looks like a large increase, but there is the possibility next year of a minus 3 per cent. figure for the retail prices index, which shows that the linkage is right. Over the years, businesses have had a good deal. Since the council tax was introduced, the amount that it contributes to local authority resources has risen from 21 to 26 per cent. At the same time, the amount contributed by the business rate has fallen from 28 to 20 per cent.”
“The report did recommend the supplementary business rate, and the Government have introduced that in principle, although they have not gone as far as Lyons wanted. I know that the Government are also looking at measures such as the community infrastructure levy, which will provide some powers at local level to raise the additional resources for councils to spend. There is a fundamental problem, however: not merely with the gearing of council services, because local authorities raise so little of the total money that they spend at local level—only a quarter—but with the disconnect between development, the costs that it brings and the extra resources that are provided for an area.”
“The easiest way to transfer more powers for raising money to local government would be to localise the business rate and put it back to where it was before the poll tax led to the changes. Of course, the Government need sufficient resources so that they can equalise the situation, on the basis of resources and need, between councils with different abilities to raise money and differing needs. The estimate is that the Government need to control about 30 per cent. of the money spent at local level to do that, not the 75 per cent. of money that they control now. Transferring business rates would actually give local authorities the right to raise about 50 per cent. of their own resources directly, and that would be a significant change, which I would commend. I know that the Lyons report looked at that, but did not recommend it.”
“We need to ensure that there are more powers and responsibilities at local level, and I commend to the House the report recently produced by the Communities and Local Government Committee, on the balance of power between central and local government. If we are to get the balance of power right and push out more responsibilities and powers locally, we have to ensure that we get the balance of funding right and give local councils more responsibility for raising the funding that pays for their services. I noticed that the words “local income tax” did not pass the lips of the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). I wonder whether there is a shift in policy coming from the Liberal Democrats.”
“When I saw that the Opposition had raised the question of business rates, I thought we would be having a thoroughgoing, wide-ranging debate on the principles behind business rates and how we might do better. Instead, we had a niggardly and rather empty proposal criticising various aspects of the mechanics of the current system. I was surprised that the party that is now supposed to believe in localism did not go for something a bit more radical. I am also disappointed that the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination, with whom I agree on most issues, was not prepared to be more radical. I agree that we need constitutional reform in this country, and one of the most important aspects of that is to improve the balance of power and responsibilities between central and local government.”
“It has been postponed and postponed, and we have got ourselves in a real mess. The system of property tax will have credibility only when it is based on current values, not on historical values that people simply do not understand. I have tried to keep to the five-minute limit and to deal with some of the important points in this debate, but I think that the Opposition missed a big opportunity. Their commitment to localism is obviously very thin indeed.”
“I am sorry, but I have not got time to give way. I normally would, but I had only five minutes and have only one minute to go. Revaluation is just another red herring. The hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) simply does not understand. Revaluation is not a way of raising in total additional money for Government or anyone else. It is simply a way of ensuring that, in light of current circumstances, the amount that is going to be raised is properly raised and spread between the various businesses in the country. That is all that it does. Once a Government fall behind with revaluation, postpone it and put it off, that simply means that the next time they do it, the dislocation is even greater. I have to say to the Government that that is exactly the problem that we now have with council tax revaluation.”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend to his new job, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to make money available for councils to start building houses again. I hope that that is just a first step towards a much larger programme. I do not know whether he has yet had a chance to read the comments of Sir Bob Kerslake, the chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency, to the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government the other day. He said that if the schemes were to succeed, local authorities making bids would have to be prepared to put their land in for free, to get the maximum value out of the Government’s money. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that that is the case, and will he encourage local authorities to come forward with bids and put their land in, so that we get maximum value from the money available?”
“Order. If an hon. Member intervenes in a debate initiated by another hon. Member, it is customary that they seek permission beforehand from the hon. Member concerned, the Minister and the Chair to do so.”
“Will the hon. Gentleman say whether a future Conservative Government would actually implement the 50 per cent. tax rate? If not, what would he do instead to raise the necessary finances?”
“That diversity certainly holds us in better stead to come through what nevertheless will clearly be a difficult period.”
“I have the honour of representing in this House a constituency in the city of Sheffield, where life is becoming difficult for many individuals and companies. However, it is interesting to note that the success of our local economy during the period of Labour Government has meant that, although unemployment is starting to rise in Sheffield, that is not happening as quickly as it is nationally. That is completely different from the city’s experience in the 1980s, when our economy was based very largely on steel and engineering. The collapse of those industries had a devastating and dramatic effect, but we now have a much more diversified economy, with a range of different industries. They include education and health provision in the public sector, as well as firms in the high-tech, financial and leisure-related sectors.”
“Madam Deputy Speaker, may I begin by offering an apology to the House? I have a long-standing appointment at 3 o’clock, and I intend no discourtesy either to you or to hon. Members who speak after me if I have to leave at that time. However, I shall of course return to the debate in due course. I shall not deal too much with the bigger picture of the Budget: instead, I want to focus on some of the particulars. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change amply illustrated the clear divide between the two sides of the House. We on the Labour Benches are looking to target measures to help the economy in general, firms and individuals through what is clearly going to be a very difficult time in the next few years. The Opposition offer no hope at all, only totally inappropriate cuts.”
“Nevertheless, the Government need to be sensitive about this point. Yes, of course we are against binge drinking; yes, of course we want sensible measures to deal with it; but if that means putting at risk community institutions such as pubs, we need to be very careful indeed. I urge the Government to think again.”
“Clearly, we have a problem with binge drinking, which is mainly about crates of cheap lager from the supermarkets getting into the hands of young people, and I am sure that we have all heard complaints from our constituents from time to time about that sort of activity. However, we face a fundamental problem in terms of the demise of the British pub as a community institution, so carrying on regardless putting up the beer duty will have an impact. The problem is not just one for the Government. The other day, I met a group of tenants in my constituency who work for Enterprise Inns; they did not point their fingers at the Government, but said that, in their calculations, Enterprise Inns could make a pound a pint on the beer it sold, so perhaps putting 2p on beer duty was not the real issue.”
“One issue people have raised with me—I do not have an the answer for the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—is that they should be buying diesel cars because they are more fuel-efficient, yet diesel is more expensive, quite a bit more expensive, than petrol in this country. In many countries on the continent, diesel is much cheaper than petrol. Why cannot we offer diesel at the pumps for at least the same price as petrol? Why do we have this price differential, which encourages people to buy less fuel-efficient cars? The Government should have a word with the industry about that with a view to mitigating some of the extra costs. On the beer tax, I know that the Government have to raise money, but there is a difficulty with their proposal.”
“How we cope with that and retain people in the industry—we need to retain people in skilled manufacturing jobs as well—is a real challenge. I am a little disappointed that the Budget paid no attention to the need to offer some help for short-time working in various industries, which has happened in many continental European countries, because that is one way in which we might have been able to keep more skilled people in manufacturing and construction. If the Government had assisted with that, we might have been able to retain more skilled workers. That challenge still has to be met. No one likes paying more at petrol or diesel pumps for their fuel—an inevitability in current circumstances.”
“It was only a year ago that we were welcoming people from the Czech Republic, Poland and many other places to help us to sustain our house building and to carry out home improvements through the decent homes programme, because we had a shortage of skilled workers. We could now have three or four years in which fewer homes are built, with people being laid off and drifting out of the industry, and no one being trained. Once demand returns, however, there could be a real problem if we go back to the old housing inflation. Demand will not have gone away, but we will have had a period without adequate supply, in which people have not been trained and others have been lost to the industry. When demand comes back, the resulting shortage of capacity could lead to another sharp upward spike in house prices.”
“That problem becomes more stark when people cannot afford to buy or cannot get a mortgage. More people are therefore going on to local authority waiting lists, and there is a real shortage of rented housing. This is certainly true of my own constituency; I get people contacting me about this problem almost every day. However, local authorities must be prepared to step up to the mark and recognise that this is a priority for them as well as for the Government. I have often said to the Government that we must consider the longer-term issues that will apply when we come out of the recession. The fundamental demand for housing, either for purchase or for rent, has not gone away. One of my real worries is that we shall now go through a period of no training for skilled workers for the building industry.”
“There is therefore going to be a real problem hitting the 40,000 target, even with these extra measures. If there is to be any chance of moving forward on building social housing for rent at the moment, the Government must make it absolutely clear that they will provide the money to local authorities that are prepared to provide their land for free in order to make these schemes happen. There is a challenge for local authorities up and down the country to come into partnership with the Government and to get social housing grant, but they then need to make that grant go further by putting their land in for free in order to get homes built in their communities. Local authorities often moan about the shortage of housing, and there is a real shortage up and down the country.”
“The Government have set a target for 40,000 units of social rented housing to be built each year, but that target is unlikely to be hit, even with this extra help, for the simple reason that section 106 agreements are no longer coming to fruition because the private schemes that would have delivered them are not being built. Also, housing associations are in difficulties because most of them rely on a mix of funding for their schemes. They get some money from the social housing grant and some from building houses for sale on the same site as their rental properties, which involves cross-subsidising. As there is now greater uncertainty about whether those houses will be sold, the housing associations cannot get private finance and many of their schemes are simply not happening.”