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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“Do you know, I had been wondering. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) is dead right, and the Prime Minister made a point about that idea several months ago. It is quite clear that local authority building has a bigger role to play. That was signalled in the Budget, but there is more that we can do. The Prime Minister said back in February that “if local authorities can convince us that they can deliver quickly and cost effectively more of the housing that Britain needs…then we will be prepared to give…our full backing and put aside any of the barriers that stand in the way of this happening.” That is a very important part of meeting the challenge ahead, and developing a bigger role for local authorities in helping to deal with the particular problems that they face in their areas.”
“I would, and in the spirit of what the Prime Minister promised, we are now changing the system so that local authorities can bid for housing grants on the same basis as housing associations. We are also ensuring that local authorities that receive grants from the Homes and Communities Agency can expect new homes to be excluded from the housing revenue account subsidy system. Those are steps to removing the barriers that we have seen in the past to councils playing a much bigger role in not just building but commissioning the houses that are needed in their areas.”
“In 48 hours I have heard a lot of jargon and read a lot of acronyms to do with housing, but a “one-size-fits-all housing policy” is not one that I have come across. It does not seem to fit the description that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield gave of our approach to housing, and I certainly do not recognise it. As for the serious local concern that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) has about his constituency area, if he will allow me I shall look in detail at the points that he has raised and write to him in response.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I say to him genuinely that the NAO report was not part of the background reading that was provided for me on my first day in the job. I shall ensure that I look at it, and I will follow his points closely.”
“I did not know about that particular scheme, which makes it difficult for me to pass judgment on it just on my hon. Friend’s report, but if he wants to write to me with the details, I will be happy to take a closer look at it.”
“The first is an attempt to put in place universal support available to all, whatever their circumstances. The support for mortgage interest scheme helps more than 200,000 households through the benefit system. We acted in January to change the rules so that more people could get more help more quickly through that scheme. That is why the Council of Mortgage Lenders, in its evidence to the Select Committee, said that the “reduction in the period for claiming income support mortgage interest was a pretty fundamental change...it has been of very significant assistance.””
“We have aimed to act swiftly to support those most affected by the downturn—first of all, people and families at risk of repossession, and of losing the very thing that is at the centre of the stability of their life: their home. We have acted to try to help those with particular problems in the housing market, including first-time buyers. We have also acted to try to support the construction industry, as well as to maintain the supply of new homes. At the same time, we have tried to pursue the longer term goals of increasing the supply of new homes, especially for low-cost rent or purchase. We have also looked to raise the quality, in both design and environmental terms, of homes, as well as to reinforce the rights of tenants. Our approach to the recession and those at risk of losing their homes can be characterised in two ways.”
“There are few in the House with a greater knowledge of these matters than my hon. Friend, and he is exactly right. In the pitch that local authorities are making for part of the £100 million that we made available in the Budget for councils to build, we are looking for them to put their own land into the pot. That will contribute not just to the building of lower-cost new houses, but potentially to building the houses that are needed more quickly. That is part of the advantage of looking to local authorities to do more, in precisely the way that I want to see, as does the Prime Minister. I shall now say something about our response during the past 12 months.”
“Gentleman invited me to look at his green paper on housing and stronger foundations. I have done so, and I was struck by several aspects of it, not least the introduction by the Leader of the Opposition. He said: “Generations of families are trapped in social housing, denied the chance to break out…I don’t want a child’s life-story to be written before they’re even born”.”
“We know that first-time buyers have been hard hit by a lack of credit, with lenders in some cases requiring deposits of up to 40 per cent. So despite falling house prices, they are unable to get on to the property ladder. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) mentioned home information packs, but it is the lack of access to credit that is the fundamental cause of stagnation in the housing market. There is no evidence to suggest that home information packs have added to the difficulties. On the contrary, a survey by Connells estate agents showed that sales with HIPs get to exchange six days earlier. ICM has highlighted the fact that more than eight out of 10 first time buyers in particular want more information, and HIPs are part of the answer. The hon.”
“They were at a record high of more than 75,000 in 1991, when one in 12 households were in arrears and 1.5 million people were in negative equity. The combination of the action we have taken to try to help people stay in their homes means that at the very point at which one might expect the number of repossessions to go through the roof, as it did in previous recessions, only 12,800 were reported in the first quarter of this year. The result is that the director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders said last month that his forecast of repossession numbers this year now looks pessimistic, and he expects to revise it. That revision is a direct result of the action that we have taken, in combination with lower interest rates and other actions that we have taken on the economy.”
“The scheme is not simply about stepping in to take over the ownership and equity for people who cannot pay the mortgage at all. Local authorities report to us that as a result of the scheme, more than 4,000 households that have been struggling with their mortgages have received free advice from their local authority. The measures are designed to be more than the sum of their parts. The combination of mortgage advice, intervention in the courts and lenders viewing repossession as a last resort means that in the first quarter of this year—a time when many would expect repossessions to rise—we have seen a 40 per cent. fall in applications to the courts by lenders to take possession of people’s homes. The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield said that repossessions were at a record high. Repossessions were at a record high in the early 1990s.”
“The universal support that we have tried to put in place for all families and households irrespective of means and circumstances includes free access to advice desks in courts across the country. That is an important part of the help that has been made available. It also includes the negotiation of a comprehensive range of support from lenders through the home owners mortgage support scheme, which has ensured that lenders view repossession as a last resort, rather than moving faster to try to repossess. The motion mentions the special schemes for people in specific circumstances. For example, more than 130 vulnerable households have so far benefited under the mortgage rescue scheme. It does not necessarily entail a simple buy-back of those homes; it can mean—as it has done in many cases— a freeze in the repossession actions by lenders.”
“I have worked with my hon. Friend for a long time and I have a great deal of time for him, but he has just stolen some of my best lines. He is right. We have tried to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes the Tories did in the 1990s. Moreover, we have fundamentally different values, and a different view of the role of Government when people are struggling and the economy is in recession. That is why we have acted where we can to try to help people stay in their own homes. We have acted to try to help firms stay in business. We have acted to try to help people stay in work. That is the fundamental duty of a Labour Government when people are in trouble.”
“The hon. Gentleman says that, but it is social stereotyping of the worst sort. The truth is that council housing and housing association housing have provided security, strong communities and decent homes, meaning a decent start for many families that they would not otherwise have been able to afford.”
“I have talked about some of the things that we have done. I have talked about the mix of housing built by housing associations and by councils. I have also been clear about the fact that I see a much bigger role for councils in future. That is one of the big tasks that face me.”
“If I may, I wish to accept the invitation from the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield to look carefully at what the Tories are saying about housing. What comes over clearly is not a desire to build, to protect tenants’ rights, or to give people a decent and secure home. Instead, it is a desire to remove the right to security from council tenants and housing association tenants—”
“Well, I have to say that, two days into this job, I am aware of a cacophony of Tory voices, some of them billed as experts and advisers on Tory policy, clamouring for the right to remove people’s security of tenure, especially in local government housing. These are not marginal figures. They include the leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council, who is a distinguished and influential figure in Tory party policy circles. He published a paper in which he called for “tearing down the Berlin Wall of varying tenure and rent levels that operates between the private rented and social rented sectors”. He advocates “one form of tenancy, modelled on an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST), which any landlord could offer.” In other words, 8 million people—4 million families—would have the security of their home reduced to a two-month notice period.”
“I mentioned Hammersmith and Fulham; my hon. Friends know—”
“They would not be talking about cutting £240 million from the budgets of local authorities. Those are not cuts for the future, but cuts that they would make now if they had the chance in government. I talked about that being true at all levels of the Conservative party. It is true at a national level, but what about London? What about the Mayor of London? He scrapped the Labour Mayor’s 50 per cent. affordable housing target—a Labour Mayor and a Labour regime that believed in social housing—in favour of what he calls negotiation with the boroughs. I will tell the House what has happened there: he is allowing them to shirk their responsibility to provide housing at levels that people can afford, whether they rent or buy. Members can look across the Tory boroughs at what this new Tory Mayor is allowing them to get away with.”
“That is the sort of intervention that I would expect from my hon. Friend. She sees very clearly that this is not just a question of removing the rights of tenure and removing security. The question of the Berlin wall between rent levels has profound implications of exactly the nature that she identifies. It is not just a matter of the Opposition removing the rights to security and the rights of council tenants or housing association tenants. The truth is that they do not believe in social housing in the first place—there is no mention of it in tonight’s motion. That is the case at all levels of the party— [ Interruption. ] They protest, but they have not put it in their motion. This is a debate about housing. If they believed in social housing, they would not be talking about cutting £800 million from the housing budget.”
“Under the new regime, now that the Mayor of London has let local councils in London off any responsibility for providing this housing, that will now be only 39 per cent. affordable housing with no provision for rent at all. The truth is that the Conservatives do not understand this type of housing. They do not support it, but they just dare not say so this side of an election.”
“My hon. Friend talks about Tory ravings; I have another example. It is not just from any old councillor, but from one of the housing advisers at Westminster council. If Members are looking for ravings, then this is an interesting article from Localis, the policy platform. The adviser talks about supporting social housing as an “absurd, unjust and unfair subsidy”. If these were just ravings and writings, I would not be so concerned, but my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush (Mr. Slaughter) is right. He has told me about a development in Shepherd’s Bush, on Bloemfontein road in his constituency. It is a £50 million development that, under the Labour Mayor and Labour council, was set to have contained 50 per cent. affordable housing—half for low-cost sale and half for low-cost rent.”
“You were not in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, when the hon. Gentleman asked me a similar question about the review and the reform of the housing revenue account. I have given him his answer.”
“My hon. Friend, who understands these things as well as any other Member of the House, is right about those risks and about the dangers in the system. Precisely the same risks and hidden aims can be found in claims that the Opposition want to see localisation of the business rate, as that would drive a coach and horses through their ability to redistribute funding to local areas and local councils from areas that have the capacity and high tax base to raise it to those that have a low tax base but perhaps a high need for it.”
“That is easy. What is clear for Stoke-on-Trent is that were the Conservatives to come into Government, the funding for housing would be cut, the funding for local councils would be cut and the people of Stoke-on-Trent, many of whom need that support from central Government, would simply not get it?”
“It ignores the dramatic falls in the levels of homelessness and the changes in the planning system that will make things faster, fairer and more strongly democratic. It also ignores the recent reforms that give tenants stronger rights and a more powerful voice. The Government’s amendment provides a fuller and fairer picture of our housing policy record. I am proud of much of what we have achieved so far, but I am also clear that we have a great deal more to do. We must do much more to help people get into the homes that they need, and to stay in the homes that they have. In particular, we have a great deal more to do to ensure that the homes that people need in future are built and available for them. That is my task, as Housing Minister, from tomorrow—from day three.”
“Spot on. I can see why my hon. Friend serves with such distinction. He is certainly not wasting his time on the Select Committee on the Treasury, and I regret only that that commitment meant that he had to step down as my Parliamentary Private Secretary. I am grateful for the support he gave me, although I think that the period was too short. The motion ignores entirely our record of success over the past 12 years, with unprecedented investment in social and affordable housing and unprecedented investment in dealing with a backlog of repairs and homes for 2 million people that simply were not decent enough to live in. It ignores the fact that house building in 2007-08 was at the highest level for 30 years.”
“We are preparing the regulations now, we will introduce them as soon as possible and they will be in place and in effect by the end of July.”
“We wanted to deal with a bigger problem. The retail prices index meant a 5 per cent. increase in the rates bills of every business, not just small businesses, and there was a particular problem for businesses that experienced the end of the transitional relief for this year. Given the current economic circumstances and the pressure that people are under, we wanted to help them to manage their cash flow and manage this increase by allowing them to pay a lower level of increase this year and spread the payments over the following two years. That is why we are introducing the regulations, and that is why they have been welcomed by business organisations.”
“It certainly deserves to be back as a Labour authority after Thursday.”
“We undertook a first annual review through the Government office in January, and Derbyshire is making good progress in meeting the priorities that it set itself. The first full independent assessment will be carried out in Derbyshire, as elsewhere, in November. Derbyshire has set itself five important economic priorities, on which it is working and making progress. It has also led a response locally, which is very impressive, helping to make sure that businesses receive the business relief that they deserve; that welfare claimants receive the benefits that they need; that buy-in from the council comes from local firms; and that invoices are paid promptly. It is a council with a proud, successful record over the past four years, and I hope that it will be judged as such by the electorate on Thursday.”
“When we consider the big economic shocks that our country has faced in recent years, such as Longbridge, the Selby pit closures, foot and mouth and the summer floods, we see that the RDAs have proved that they can respond more rapidly than Whitehall and with more clout than any single local council. The alternative to regional level action and plans is either national decisions taken by people in London without the necessary local knowledge, or big councils holding sway, which means that smaller cities and towns lose out.”
“This is not, as she suggests, a Government or a Bill with an obsession about regionalisation; the legislation is a recognition that it is necessary to do some things beyond the boundaries of single local authorities, because the alternative, as in the past, is that decisions are taken and things are done by Whitehall. We have regional economies of about 5 million people, and they are as big as some European Union member states. In that respect, our economy in Yorkshire is bigger than those of Norway, of Singapore and of Ireland, so if we do not have serious economic plans in our regions, we will lose out on important inward investment. We need such a policy in all regions, because in the early ’80s and ’90s too much was centred on the greater south-east, while London overlooked the potential and problems of the north and midlands.”
“We want them to do so on petitions; by involving people in local decisions not just by councils, but by other local agencies; through a framework, so that those local authorities that want to formalise collaboration with neighbouring local authorities to tackle the economic challenges that go beyond the boundaries of their own area can do so; and by undertaking local economic assessments systematically in every major area. The hon. Lady became most confused when she moved on to discuss the regions. She said to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) that if his local authority wanted an RDA, it could have one. Then she said that the Opposition would get rid of the whole regional tier.”
“Spelman) from the Opposition Front Bench, and by that of her hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) just now. She either misreads or misrepresents the Bill’s content, because her case against it is confused and her alternative proposals are incoherent at best. She says that much of the Bill is based on best practice and plain common sense, and she is right. The point of the legislation, and the reason it is needed, is that we want all local authorities to do what the best already do.”
“It is not constitutional reform legislation, but it sets out a series of sensible, useful steps to improve the way that local authorities can respond to their residents and the ways in which they can work together. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, the Bill is important at the moment because we are trying to ensure that people’s anger is answered in some way—modestly, in this Bill—through practical changes that both allow them to see more decisions taken within their reach and give them greater influence over and information about such decisions, not just by local authorities but by other agencies in their area. That is what the Bill sets out to do. I commented earlier on the high quality of most contributions, but I was really disappointed by the contribution of the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs.”
“I was interested in the speech from the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). He was right, and he was the only one to say this tonight: in the crisis that we face, political parties have an important role. While we look at the procedures of our own Parliament and at questions over the constitution and the political system for the future, we need political parties that are more active, particularly locally and we, as leading members of those parties, have a big part to play within our own parties. The Bill may well be, as the hon. Gentleman said, the first Bill that the House is considering after the Telegraph apocalypse, as he put it, but it does not set out to answer all the questions that have been raised about our politics over the past two to three weeks.”
“Khan) in Committee. I look forward to that. The Bill has two broad aims, both of which developed from earlier legislation and earlier policy statements that we have issued. The first broad aim is to continue the drive towards stronger local democracy, with more powers both for local authorities and for local people to hold their local authorities to account—principles set out in the White Paper, “Communities in control”. The second aim is to do more to promote economic recovery and long-term prosperity and economic development, implementing the proposals first set out in the sub-national review of economic development and regeneration. As the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association said, the Bill will give councillors the power to effect real economic change in their local areas. She was right about that.”
“This has been a very good debate. It follows full proceedings in the other place, which were ably led from the Government Benches by Baroness Andrews and Lord Patel, with strong contributions from all parts of that House, as there have been tonight. There were strongly felt but reflective contributions from both sides of the Chamber this evening—expertise from local government and of local government within national Government. I cannot recall a Bill that I have led or a debate to which I have responded in the House when quite so many Members on both sides with direct ministerial experience of the issues at the centre of the debate have contributed. I welcome that and encourage all to continue that debate with me and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr.”
“Fewer than one third of local authorities guarantee a response to petitions, and that is why we want to bring all authorities up to the level of the best. The Bill will ensure, for the first time ever, that when people sign a local petition, they will have a right to a public response. We know that petitions are popular; 90 per cent. of people think that councils should take petitions into account and 84 per cent. say that they would be more likely to sign a petition if a response was guaranteed. When the Local Government Association says that only a third of councils will guarantee a response— [ Interruption. ]”
“I was talking about the response to those floods by the regional development agencies, which the Opposition want to abolish. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that, in Yorkshire, 24 hours after the floods hit, a scheme to support small businesses was up and running and a two-page application form had been prepared and, within seven days, the first payment had been made to businesses that needed help—regional development agencies responding more quickly than Whitehall could, and with more clout and more sway than a single region or council. I come to the speech of the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) and I shall tackle the question of petitions, because several Members from both sides have raised it.”
“How do we set up a system in which directly elected representatives can operate and take decisions with implications beyond the boundaries of their own local authority areas? There is no easy answer, but what if some functions are needed at that level and if those functions need to be more open and responsive, and capable of better scrutiny and of being held more publicly to account? In that case, elected council leaders, working through a leaders’ board, multi-area agreements in which councils voluntarily sign up to collaborate together, and Regional Select Committees, set up by the House, must be part of the answer.”
“He especially welcomed the formalisation of multi-area agreements, saying that they would particularly help Olympic boroughs such as his; he was right about that. He spoke about electronic payments from parish councils and promised to move amendments and initiate a debate on that issue. If he decides to do that, I shall ensure that we take a close look at his proposals. The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) is right that multi-area agreements and leaders’ boards are a challenge to direct accountability. The challenge is this: how do we deal with a situation in which there is no directly elected sub-regional or regional government—an idea that ended with the result of the referendum on an elected assembly for the north-east?”
“That is a fair characterisation of the early days but in the past few years, as local government has got so much better, we can point to the first ever three-year funding settlement and the cutting of a lot of the funding strings; the removal of many of the reporting requirements and targets; and local area agreements, which are put in place and negotiated with local areas. Furthermore, there have been above-inflation increases in the central Government grants to local government each and every year since 1997. As my hon. Friend will remember, that is absolutely in contrast to the years before 1997, when local government funding was cut. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) generally supported the Bill, and I welcome that.”
“I am grateful for that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I am trying to respond to points made by hon. Members who have sat through the whole debate. Given that a third of councils do not respond to petitions and that even fewer local authorities make information about how they handle petitions publicly available, we need to make sure that all measure up to the best. That is what the Bill does. I turn to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer). For a long time, he has been an advocate of local government and a critic of central Government. He took the Government to task by saying that they had been very centralised since 1997.”
“Lilley) described to the House an area in his constituency known as Lilley Bottom; I am glad that he did not mix geography with anatomy as he did so. As he will know, his serious point still has to be tested by inspectors, and that does not allow Ministers to comment at this stage. Just to be clear, local councils do not have specific powers to fulfil their house building targets by seeking planning permission to build in the territory of other local authorities, but we do support councils when they look to prepare joint plans and joint initiatives and decide between them how best to accommodate their housing needs.”
“I knew that I would regret giving way to the hon. Gentleman. His point relates to a debate for the future, after the boundary committee for England reports in mid-July. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I and the rest of the House do that his point has nothing to do with the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) immediately “got” the purpose of the Bill and explained clearly how the local authorities in his area, through the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire, are working together to benefit the wider area and need and want a way of formalising the framework within which they can do that. The Bill gives them that opportunity. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr.”
“I will give way one last time, and then, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I want to respond to other hon. Members—and right hon. Members; Privy Counsellors, therefore—who have contributed to the debate.”
“Member for Meriden that if nothing is done above the level of the local council and there is no legal framework for that, we will fail to provide the housing, renewable energy, transport investment, widespread regeneration and business support that this country needs. Her opposition to the Bill does not have the support of her own Tory colleagues in local government, and she should not command the backing of this House. I commend the Bill to the House and urge Members to give it a Second Reading. Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time. The House divided: Ayes 276, Noes 154.”