John Healey
MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Spock, I think some would say, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend is right. Despite global conflicts, trade tensions and rising threats in the world, which are pushing up inflation, bearing down on growth and pushing up borrowing costs, the UK economy is demonstrating huge resilience.”
“The Prime Minister and I have been clear that we must cut the costs of welfare. On levels of taxation, we had a period of Conservative Government, with low growth and high debt. They crashed the economy with the mini-Budget, and we had levels of taxation that were putting pressure on business, adding to the cost of living.”
“The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength. On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon.”
“Since day one in the job, the Prime Minister and I have been in lockstep in our determination to meet Britain’s fiscal rules. This is the bedrock on which we build good growth and help give a bit of breathing space to families and businesses.”
“May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)? I am proud to have been a member of a Government with the first female Chancellor in 700 years.”
“My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love.”
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“You can’t help the homeless if you won’t build the homes. Over the past six years, the Secretary of State’s Government have cut all funding for building new, genuinely affordable social housing. He asks about my record. In 2009, when I stood where he is standing, Labour in government started 40,000 new social rented homes. Last year, it was 1,000. From Labour’s Front Bench, I welcome the Secretary of State’s backing for the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), but will the right hon. Gentleman take the opportunity on Friday also to deal with the causes of rising homelessness? Build more affordable housing. Act on private renting and reverse the crude cuts to housing benefit for the most vulnerable people.”
“I rise to present this petition from the residents of the Swinton and Silverwood wards in my constituency, who are among more than 50,000 south Yorkshire women hit by these unfair pension age changes, in the same terms as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South. The Petition of the residents of Wentworth and Dearne. [P001833]”
“What help can you give the House to ensure that Ministers are properly held to account for their decisions?”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for the remarks you just made to the House. Were you given any indication that Ministers were considering an oral statement on the consequences of their cuts to the housing benefit of many thousands of vulnerable people in supported housing? The written statement raises more questions than it answers. The policy is delayed, but the cuts will go ahead. There is no figure on the new funding pledged, yet the Budget scored the so-called savings at £990 million. The new fund that has been promised is similar to the Supporting People programme, which has been cut almost in half since 2010. The first announcement was smuggled out in the small print of the autumn statement. Today’s announcement is buried in the small print of a long written ministerial statement.”
“I welcome the Secretary of State to his post. Is he aware from his briefings that the evidence review started in December 2014? When will it be concluded?”
“I am grateful for that confirmation, although we have seen other commitments and timescales come and go. We look forward to hearing from the Secretary of State and will hold him to that. May I correct something he said earlier? It will be from April 2017 that new tenancies will then be affected in April 2018, so these changes will come into effect before 2018 and affect people from April 2017 onwards. That is why it is important that he gets to grips with this problem urgently.”
“The real test will not be whether he can publish this evidence review, but whether he can get the change of decision that hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people in this country desperately want to hear from this Government.”
“Together, those two organisations look after over 100 vulnerable people, but they say that they will be losing out by £8,000 a week and will have to close their doors and their schemes, leaving the people with nowhere else to go. So I say to the Secretary of State that the review in the early autumn is fine, but that was started in 2014. We were told that it would report by the end of March, but it did not. It was nine months too late then, and by early autumn it will be 12 months too late for the decision that has already been taken. The test now is: can he produce this review in time for the next autumn statement, because he missed the last autumn statement?”
“I also want to press the case, as the motion does, for a full exemption of all supported and sheltered housing from these crude, across-the-board cuts. The Secretary of State’s words and tone were welcome today, but the test will be whether he can deliver a change of decision come the autumn. He said that the issues are important, sensitive and hugely difficult. He said that he was prepared to listen carefully to the sector, which we welcome. He also acknowledged that this sector transforms lives. In Rotherham, Target Housing does just that with people coming out of prison and the penal system, and Rush House does just that with vulnerable young people, often needing somewhere safe and a roof over their head and then the chance to be able to live independently.”
“The purpose of my publicly exposing the problems with the housing benefit cut in December, calling the debate in this House in January, visiting many of the most vulnerable at-risk schemes across the country throughout February, and making a Budget submission to the Chancellor in March remains the same as it was back then: to give voice to the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people whose homes have been put at risk by the decision taken in the autumn statement and to highlight the warnings and the evidence of organisations that have the facts and will have to deal with the consequences. They are providers that the public respects and trusts, such as Women’s Aid, Mencap, Age UK and the Salvation Army.”
“1360.] With one short sweeping sentence, he put at risk almost all specialist housing for the frail elderly, the homeless, young children and people leaving care, people with dementia, people with mental illness or learning disabilities, people fleeing domestic violence and some of our veterans. The Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), either did not spot it or did not stop it, but either way the Chancellor completely ignored him last year. One of the tests for the new Secretary of State will be whether he can get the Chancellor to reverse the decision and to make a different one.”
“Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) in January in a similar debate on a motion in similar terms to try to defend supported housing from some crude, across-the-board cuts that put its very future in jeopardy. Those cuts were announced by the previous Chancellor in last November’s autumn statement. The Government Front-Bench team keep on saying that they do not want to rush the decision, but that was the decision that was taken. It was wrong and was taken with no consultation, no evidence, no impact assessment and no warning. The previous Chancellor said that “housing benefit in the social sector will be capped at the relevant local housing allowance.” —[ Official Report , 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight). He claims that the Government’s approach is rooted in a deep appreciation of the help that supported housing gives to many of the most vulnerable. That certainly was not a characteristic of the Chancellor’s decision in November, but we look forward to it being a characteristic of the decisions taken by the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the new Chancellor this autumn. I applaud my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for joining forces in this debate—just as I did with our hon.”
“But we do know this. If the hon. Gentleman looks in the Red Book, he will see, scored by the then Chancellor, savings for three years from 2018-19 for this measure on housing benefit of £990 million. We know this. That is the problem, that is the decision and that is what needs to be reversed.”
“The northern powerhouse plans in south Yorkshire are at risk. In the 1980s, our economic regeneration was kick-started by funding from Europe and it still supports small businesses, training and apprenticeships, so may I give the Chief Secretary another chance? Will he guarantee that the £174 million that has been pledged to south Yorkshire under the current programme will be paid in full?”
“14. On house building, new research from the House of Commons Library shows that, in the six years under last week’s Prime Minister, fewer new homes were built in this country than under any Prime Minister since the 1920s, including 14% fewer than under Gordon Brown, despite the downturn; 21% fewer than under Tony Blair; and 35% fewer than under Margaret Thatcher. The new Housing Minister and Secretary of State are not responsible for their predecessors’ mistakes, but they are responsible for what happens now, particularly in the light of the EU referendum. After six years of failure on housing under Conservative Ministers, what changes can we now expect to see?”
“One of the things we require from the Minister today is surely a commitment that the Government will stand by the pledges they have made to support steelworkers, steel communities and the future of steelmaking, including in south Yorkshire at Rotherham and Stocksbridge.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He poses a question about the additional uncertainty and the Government action that is required. Is he aware that, as part of the reaction to the uncertainty, south Yorkshire-based Speciality Steels will be sold, fast-tracked and separately, despite the pause on the sale of Tata’s main strip business? He will have seen Monday’s written statement from the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which made no mention of whether the Government are willing to help on financing, energy costs or research and development support.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way and for her response. May I ask her to thank the Secretary of State for his response, and to let her successor, if there is one, and his successor, if there is one, know that we as South Yorkshire MPs will be holding the Government to that commitment?”
“Will he point out to the Leader of the House that it is possible to have a healthily growing population alongside higher home ownership, just as Britain did during the baby-boom years under Macmillan and Wilson?”
“I welcome the Secretary of State’s tribute to Darren Cooper. For many of us, he was not just a good local Labour council leader but a good colleague and a friend. May I take the Secretary of State back to the answer he gave the House in reply to Question 2, when he talked about the Government’s housebuilding programme? The latest official figures show that the number of new homes is down by 9% and that, six years on, it is still a third below the peak achieved under Labour. This is the housebuilding recovery that never was. Does he not agree that when housing policy fails so badly, it gives an opening to those who want to fuel resentment and division? Will he therefore today disown the comments of his Cabinet colleague the Leader of the House who blames the fall in home ownership on EU migration?”
“Does he agree that the European Investment Bank’s commitment of £1 billion to build almost 20,000 new affordable homes is now needed more than ever, not least because this Government’s housing investment over this Parliament will be only half what it was under Labour?”
“May I suggest that the Secretary of State go back to the Department and call in his Government statisticians to put him right on these figures? The Labour record speaks for itself: 1 million more homeowners, 2 million new homes built, and the largest investment in social housing in a generation. That is a record that the present Housing Minister would give his right arm for; it might even get him a Cabinet promotion. May I, however, bring the Secretary of State back to the question of the European Union? Does he accept that the European Union is helpful to housebuilding in Britain?”
“Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse went on to talk about housing and the damage that the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which has just reached the statute book, will bring—”
“Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), with the authority that she brings as the Chair of the Transport Committee, by the hon. Members for Bath, for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) and for Strangford, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who said that the big absence from the Queen’s Speech was any announcement on airports and on Heathrow. He described such an announcement as long overdue and rightly reminded the Government of all the groundwork done by the Labour Government—a White Paper on aviation in 2003 and the decision in 2008 on the expansion of Heathrow, but nothing since. My hon.”
“Friends the Member for Nottingham South and for Denton and Reddish both questioned why it was only for areas with elected mayors. We want other mayors to get the same powers in the same way as the Bill goes through this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South took the Government to task for the lack of response to the Law Commission’s report and the lack of a taxi licensing Bill. We want the system to be tightened up so that drivers who are rightly and properly rejected for a licence in their own area cannot sidestep the bar by getting a licence in another area. Above all, my hon. Friend took the Secretary of State to task for the continuing delay regarding any decision on airport expansion, particularly on the runway at Heathrow. My hon. Friend was strongly backed by my hon.”
“Friend warned the Secretary of State for Transport, who is again not in his place on the Treasury Bench, about the gap between what this Government do and what this Government say. She welcomed the buses Bill, which has received wide support in the House this afternoon, including from the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett), my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—who also referred to this as the sci-fi Queen’s Speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) also talked about how valuable the buses Bill is, and I think the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg), who is no longer here, might have said that, too. Although they welcomed the Bill, my hon.”
“Headline measures in legislation for this year are little more than a middle manager’s task list for the next month: more control over budgets for prison governors; stop radical preachers from taking jobs in elderly care homes; longer school days; more NHS charging for non-EU citizens; money for school sport from a levy on fizzy drinks. I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker! This is the “So what?” Queen’s Speech—minimal, managerial, marking time; minor policy changes hugely overblown and hugely over-briefed to the Minister. What was not a waste of time was the speech from the shadow Transport Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), and many of the speeches made this afternoon by hon. Members on both sides. My hon.”
“What an extraordinary waste of time! I counted 42 announcements in the Queen’s Speech and only four had not been announced before yesterday. This is a Queen’s Speech that risks being a waste of the Queen’s time, the people’s time and Parliament’s time. I cannot recall in 19 years in this House seeing a Queen’s Speech debate in which the speeches from the Government Back Benches numbered two and ran out before we got a third of the way into the debate, and those Benches were entirely empty for the rest of the debate.”
“Let me finish my comments on my hon. Friend’s speech, then I will give way to him. My hon. Friend went on to speak about leasehold reform. He is one of the champions of leasehold reform in the House. I was glad to hear that the Minister for Housing and Planning is now taking an interest. For too long, under Governments of both parties, leasehold reform has been put in the “too difficult to do” box. To the extent that the Minister is willing to act on leasehold reform, we are willing to support him where we can.”
“As the former Work and Pensions Secretary said when he walked out of the Government, policies are “distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest.” This is a Government who worry more about political message than policy substance, and who are more concerned to fix headlines than the housing crisis, the elderly care crisis, the crisis in wages for working people, or the crisis of low investment, productivity, skills and exports. Never mind one nation; this is a Government and a Queen’s Speech that are failing the nation.”
“I remind the House that the Land Registry returned a profit of £100 million to the taxpayer in 2012-13 and has delivered a surplus to the taxpayer and the Treasury in 19 of the past 20 years. It is a public asset that makes money for the public purse, and we should keep it that way. The deeper truth about this Queen’s Speech is a Conservative party riven over Europe and too divided to prepare a serious legislative programme that even tries to get to grips with the country’s problems. It is a Queen’s Speech for a quiet life in No. 10 Downing Street. It confirms a Prime Minister past his sell-by date.”
“We look forward to seeing what further compulsory purchase powers the Government introduce in that Bill. Labour’s Lyons review in the previous Parliament recommended updating legislation on compulsory purchase orders to streamline and simplify the relevant powers and to enable CPOs to be secured at closer to existing use value. I hope that those suggestions will be in the Bill, because they will be among the tests that we use in considering it. We will, however, oppose the privatisation of the public Land Registry, which will undermine the trust of homeowners, mortgage lenders and solicitors, and put at risk the essential neutrality, quality and transparency that the Land Registry offers. It will be a gift to tax evaders and avoiders.”
“Because growth in new house building has been so sluggish under this Government—astonishingly, it has been only 2% on average since 2010—if they do not improve that run rate, they will not hit their target until 2033. Some of the best policies are bigger than party politics and capable of commanding a broad consensus, such as Bank of England independence, the national planning Act for major infrastructure projects and the localisation of council housing finance. Under the neighbourhood planning and infrastructure Bill, there is a welcome commitment to put the National Infrastructure Commission on a statutory footing. Like the commission itself, that was a recommendation made in Labour’s Armitt review in the previous Parliament, so we are pleased that the Government have taken it up.”
“Yesterday the sovereign said in the other place: “My Government will support aspiration and promote home ownership through its commitment to build a million new homes.” The Housing and Planning Minister sometimes plays fast and loose with the figures. It is not possible to house people in planning permissions or to live in a start. It is building new homes that counts, and if he is to build 1 million new homes in this Parliament, he will have to do a great deal better than what we have seen over the past six years. There were fewer new homes built in the last Parliament than under any peacetime Government since the 1920s. Even in the latest full year, 2015, the number of new homes built was still far below where it needs to be—a total of just 143,000. By the way, that is still 24% below the peak during Labour’s 13 years in office.”
“Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse said, fewer affordable homes were built than at any time in more than two decades, and the housing benefit bill rose by £2 billion in real terms over the course of the last Parliament. My hon. Friend the Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee took the Housing and Planning Minister to task over his target of 1 million homes. He made the strong argument—this was echoed by the hon. Member for Strangford—that social housing, new social housing and affordable housing to rent as well as to buy must be part of the picture. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown)—he is not in the Chamber, so I will not mention him again—made a similar point.”
“The six years of failure on the economy will be unaffected by many of the measures in the Queen’s Speech. There have also been six years of failure on housing. After 2 million more homes were built and 1 million more households became homeowners under Labour, we have seen failure on all fronts since 2010. When this Queen’s Speech needed direction on housing and planning, we got more of the same. The effects of six years of failure include 200,000 fewer homeowners in this country. A third of a million fewer under-35s—young people—are able to own their own home than when the Prime Minister took over in 2010. The number of families accepted as homeless has risen by a third in the past six years. Rough sleeping has doubled and is up by a third in the past year alone. Last year, as my hon.”
“Any right wing, hard-line Finance Minister can cut public spending, but he is dodging the really tough decisions that he himself promised to take in 2010. Rather than helping British businesses to sell to the world, our UK trade gap was a record £96 billion in the red last year, which is the biggest ever deficit since records began in 1948. Rather than reforming the finance sector and rebuilding our production base, the number of manufacturing jobs in this country is still almost 10% below that before the global crisis and crash. Rather than rebalancing the economy away from borrowing, debt and household consumption, it is now forecast that household debt will top pre-crash levels and reach 160% of income by the end of this Parliament.”
“It has a real impact when we get it right in areas all across the country. Instead of that investment in Britain’s future, the Chancellor and Conservative Ministers have, from 2010 onwards, cut investment that would secure our place in the world, stronger long-term growth and the future welfare of our citizens. The Transport Secretary told us at the beginning of the debate—I have checked this—that yesterday’s Queen’s Speech was “all about building a stronger, more resilient, more modern economy”. I have to say, however, that after six years of failure, it is clear that the Government are doing no such thing. It is clear that the Chancellor did not fix our economic foundations after the global crash.”
“In the same year, roads investment was slashed by £4 billion. The renewables obligation—Labour’s renewables obligation, which was creating the funding to invest in green energy—was removed entirely. That is the reality of what happens when the Government do, rather than talk about, infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) spoke about why this sort of investment is so important—why it is more than simply figures and argy-bargy in this House. He talked about Hitachi in his constituency, and the huge number of jobs and a big boost to growth in that region because of the investment in our rail system and in the rolling stock required to upgrade it. It is that sort of impact, on all parts of the country, that makes infrastructure investment more than simply a matter of political and policy debate.”
“The Secretary of State talked about UK infrastructure and, with a flourish, picked two dates, he said, at random—1997 and 2010. In 2010, Labour’s last year in government, public sector net investment—or infrastructure investment from Government—was 3.4% of GDP. One year later, in the first year of the previous Parliament, after the Chancellor made his cuts, it was down to 2.8%. By the end of that Parliament, it was 1.9% of GDP. This year, it is 1.9%. By the end of this Parliament, it will be 1.5%. That is the reality between the great rhetoric that my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South talked about and the actions, investment and long-term commitments we see from this Government. Housing investment—part of the picture—was slashed by 60% in 2010, the first year of the previous Government.”
“I liked the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) made when he reminded the House and Ministers that we require intellectual infrastructure as well as hard building and capital projects. He urged a training and certification programme for, for instance, engineers involved in the development of electric vehicles and in the electric infrastructure to support those vehicles. He expressed a fear shared by me and many colleagues in Yorkshire and Humber that HS2 will simply mean faster rail journeys between London and Birmingham, and the north-west will be left out. The Secretary of State said nothing to reassure the House about the plans or promises on HS2 being delivered in full.”
“Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin), who has left the Chamber, argued that it might be helpful to adopt the Scottish model—or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South pointed out, the London model—for concessionary travel. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) rightly reminded the House that business demands better infrastructure. A city as big as Bradford, as rich in business history and business innovation, as it now is, is being badly let down by the quality of the investment and transport infrastructure to support it. As she said, grand rhetoric is what we get from Government while real change, real investment and real improvement falls so far short of that, and people in her city, businesses and residents alike, will find little comfort in the Queen’s Speech announcements.”
“Over the years that I have known her there has been no more consistent, forceful or better champion of older people than my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley). She gave the House the extraordinary statistic that one in three carers now has to wait six months to get an assessment of their needs, never mind get those needs met. As she rightly said, the £4.6 billion cuts to adult social care since 2010 are a big part of that story, and there is nothing in this Queen’s Speech to reassure people concerned about this that the essential funding is in place. She also noted that there is no pensions Bill to deal with the problems of the 2.6 million older women who have been hit so hard by the recent pension changes. The hon.”
“It is fine to talk of social justice, increased life chances and reducing inequality, but we look to the actions for proof that the Government mean what they say and do as they say. As my hon. Friend said, when we look at the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance, the introduction of the bedroom tax, and the cutting of benefit support to disabled people and to people working hard on low incomes, all the signs from the past six years point in the opposite direction. My hon. Friend described this Queen’s Speech as a missed opportunity. I thought he made an interesting argument, which he could perhaps take up with the Procedure Committee, about whether, as one of the consistent systematic checks that this House applies to any new legislation, we could assess its impact on national health and wellbeing.”
“Friend the Member for Great Grimsby asked whether he would be prepared to meet her and other MPs from the area to discuss how the barriers that transport creates—especially barriers to leisure for young and older people, as well as to their work and trade—could be overcome. The Secretary of State is nodding, which is a good sign. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend that that meeting will go ahead shortly. One thing that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish always brings to debate is passion and principle. I love the way he speaks. He rightly said that intentions were well and good, but it is on actions that people will judge this Government.”
“It will not surprise my hon. Friend to know that I will come on to that. He is right. We sometimes hear the Government say that they have built more social homes than we did, but 90% of the social homes built by this Government were commissioned by the Labour Government and largely funded by the Labour Government. I should know—I was the Minister who did it. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) made a strong case for lower tolls on the Humber bridge. Existing tolls, she said, were a barrier not just to work and to trade, but to leisure. I am pleased to see the Secretary of State for Transport on the Front Bench. My hon.”
“My question is for the Secretary of State, who clearly lacks the clout to argue his Department’s case with the Chancellor, because there was nothing in the Budget on housing—nothing to reverse six years of failure, from rising homelessness to falling home ownership. In Labour’s last year, despite the global banking collapse and deep recession, we saw 120,000 new homes built in this country. Five years later, that total was only 5,000 higher. At this rate, the Secretary of State will not hit his house-building targets until 2079, so why was there so little in the Budget on housing?”
“On the contrary, the extra investment that the Chancellor announced in the spending review that is cited by Ministers brings the total to around about half that invested by Labour in building new homes when I was the last Labour Housing Minister. The truth is that there was little in the Budget on housing, and nothing that will deal with the causes of the housing crisis, so six years of failure is set to stretch to 10. Will the Minister now admit that, on housing, as on everything else, the Chancellor’s credibility is in tatters?”
“What we were given in this Budget was a downgraded economy from a diminished Chancellor who was speaking to a divided party and for a damaged Government. This is a black hole Budget: a Budget which, like the Chancellor, does not deserve support from any party in the House.”