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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have to remind the hon. Gentleman that the debate is exclusively on education and local government.
Mr. Dobson: Everything I am talking about is related to the functions of local government, as I shall go on to demonstrate, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The damage does not stop with the people who suffer ill health. Their ill health is bad for the rest of us, as well. It is bad for us as taxpayers because we have to pay for their medical treatment, and the costs do not end there. If people are ill, they cannot work, so we have to pay for the benefits that they need, including housing benefit, which is a responsibility of local authorities. We have to find the money to make up for the tax that they do not pay, including council tax. We have to go without the
goods and services that they would produce if they were at work. Their employers in the Confederation of British Industry are deeply concerned, so they tell me, even if the Secretary of State is not, about the 175 million working days lost each year.
As a society, we should try to help the victims of unavoidable illness. As a society, we should offer advice, help and inducements to choose a healthy life style. Most important, as a society, we must act together to combat the innumerable causes of ill health and injury which spring from the conditions in which far too many people are forced to live and work.
Poverty is a health hazard. Unemployment makes people ill. Poor-quality food makes people weak. Air pollution chokes people. Bad working conditions are literally sickening. Low pay undermines people's health. Stress and anxiety make people ill, mentally and physically.
That is why we are determined to do something about it. We are determined to launch a concerted programme on the causes of illness. We want everyone to be involved. Our programme will not be a burden on business or on the taxpayer. It is illness that is a burden on business and the taxpayer. We are determined to reduce that burden. We believe that environmental and economic benefits will flow from our strategy.
First--local authorities are involved in this, Mr. Deputy Speaker--on food standards, which were not mentioned in the Queen's Speech, our proposals to set up an independent food standards agency will promote public health, improve children's health and help the food industry by bolstering consumer confidence.
Secondly, transport was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech.
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. John Gummer):
Will the hon. Gentleman help me? The Labour party originally said that the debate would be on education and the environment. The hon. Gentleman then decided that he had nothing to say about the environment, so he withdrew that topic and decided to talk about local government. He is now talking about food safety. Can he talk about either the environment or local government? After two and a half years, it would be nice to hear him make a speech on the environment. Most of us believe that he knows nothing about it.
Mr. Dobson:
That is a bit rich coming from the right hon. Gentleman, who is apparently so ignorant of the courtesies of the House that he did not bother to tell us that he did not intend to reply to the debate. He turned up literally one minute before I started to speak. On the subject of food safety, it is worth reminding ourselves that people's principal recollection of the Secretary of State is his attempt to feed a hamburger to his daughter, which was too hot, so she refused to eat it. People tend to forget the sequel to that: he ate it himself, and what is more, the effects are beginning to show.
The third item should appeal to the Secretary of State, if he can listen patiently. Home energy efficiency, which is to do with the environment, was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. At present, the homes of many of the worst-off families and pensioners are poorly insulated. Although their fuel bills cost a fortune, they waste so much energy that they cannot keep warm. Labour's plans
for a home energy efficiency programme, which have been drawn up by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), will cut household fuel bills, help the environment by saving fuel, add warmth, improve health and create jobs.
Fourthly, housing was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. Apparently the Government think that the position on housing is okay, that nothing more needs to be done, and that their housing policies are succeeding. If the Government are satisfied with what is happening, they are far too easily satisfied. The figures show that 48,000 families had their homes repossessed last year, and that, at the beginning of this summer, half a million families were in negative equity and almost 200,000 families were in serious mortgage arrears. The Government do not propose to do anything to help.
The shortage of housing--which, according to chartered surveyors, has driven up the price of houses--is being made worse because housing starts are down. Private housing starts are down, housing association starts are down, and council housing starts are virtually non-existent--just 651 in the whole of last year. Not one council house or flat was started in the north-west or in London last year.
To anyone who can make the connection, it should be no surprise that thousands of people are sleeping rough. The Government have organised surveys of the number of rough sleepers in York, Cambridge, Norwich, Bath, Exeter, Gloucester, Basingstoke and Reading: it is no longer just big cities that have a homelessness problem. In the past year, 120,000 families were officially classified as homeless. Hundreds of thousands more are living in overcrowded or substandard conditions. According to the Government's own figures, more than 1.5 million homes are unfit for human habitation, yet they propose to do nothing about it. They do not even mention housing in the Queen's Speech.
This drift is damaging the country. Not having somewhere decent to live makes people ill, makes it hard for breadwinners to hold down a job, and makes it difficult for children to do well at school. Anyone with a grain of sense knows that doing homework is well nigh impossible when a child has no decent home to go to. This drift not only harms people who have nowhere decent to live, but puts building firms out of business and building workers out of jobs. It loses orders for building supply companies, and deprives professionals of job opportunities.
It is time that the Government made a start on building homes for people in need. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) said in his speech at the Labour party conference and repeated when he opened the debate on the Queen's Speech, we are committed to encouraging councils to invest the takings from the sale of council houses in new and rehabilitated homes. That will provide not just new homes and jobs for people in the building industry but orders and jobs for firms that make door hinges in Dudley, electrical fittings in Basildon, carpets in Brighouse and Halifax, lavatory pans in Stoke-on-Trent and glass in St. Helens--jobs all over the country.
The Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration (Mr. David Curry):
My father was headmaster of a primary school within sight of Armley gaol in Leeds; my mother took teacher training as a mature student and also taught in one of the most difficult areas of Leeds; my aunt was head teacher in a rural school; and my uncle was a school inspector specialising in truancy and delinquency. I am responsible for the Government's regeneration programmes, and I will not take lessons from the Opposition on how to help those most in need in this society.
One always listens to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), entertaining the hope that he will stray inadvertently into common sense. We are invariably disappointed. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, this was supposed to be a debate on the environment. At least Labour knew that we had a new policy on that. It was then to be a debate on local government, and now we know that Labour has no policy on that. Out of 30 minutes, the hon. Gentleman gave us just 30 seconds--it may not have been quite so long--on the Government's proposal for rural areas, which shows the measure of the Labour party's concern for the fate of those who live in the countryside.
We heard the most extraordinary diatribe against the media and television from a Front-Bench spokesman of a party whose leader galloped off to a coral reef in Australia to commune with the Murdoch empire to try to get it on his side. That is a curious formulation of the Labour party's views on the media, given its desperate anxiety and its circumnavigation of Fleet street and docklands to try to persuade editors that it can be touched after all.
The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras was supposed to give a winding-up speech. He was wound up outside the Chamber like a tin soldier. He charged in and flailed frantically around without landing a single punch. I do not know who wrote his speech. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is bidding for the leadership in anticipation of the next election defeat for his party, but it was an extraordinary performance. The only comment he made on local government was the old canard, "Let us release capital receipts from local government." This is the do-it-all-with-mirrors school of thought on finance. The Labour party has suddenly found the piggy-bank of £5 billion.
The hon. Gentleman must realise that, if he is to release £5 billion of capital receipts, the effect will be identical to increasing credit approvals. Indeed, it will be worse, because they are not in the right place. If that is what the Labour party wants to do, it would be far more sensible to increase credit approvals. That, however, would increase public expenditure, because the Labour party says that it would not redefine the public sector borrowing requirement. Would the Labour party liberate all future capital receipts as well? [Interruption.] All Governments say that they will contain public expenditure. The Labour party's Treasury team hastens to impress us at every opportunity by saying that, whatever its housing spokesman may say, we should not believe a word of it because it will keep the purse strings, but it is not prepared to change the public sector borrowing requirement.
My hon. Friends the Members for Saffron Walden (Sir A. Haselhurst) and for Wellingborough (Sir P. Fry) mentioned our proposals to help village shops and rural
communities. That need is crucial. We talk constantly about regeneration in terms of inner cities, and their problems are real and important enough. However, regeneration is also an issue in rural communities. Our country takes a particular pride in such communities. Our countryside is unique and we want to preserve it, but it must be a countryside in which people live and from which they can earn their livelihood--not one preserved purely as a museum.
The key to many villages is the village shop, on which many elderly people depend. Our proposals to give mandatory rate relief will assist a large number of people who are themselves disadvantaged and in some cases marooned. We will also allow local authorities to give discretionary relief to a wider range of shops, so that they can give a great deal more assistance to their communities. That is a subject of great amusement to the Opposition parties, but many people in Britain prize our rural communities and wish to assist them.
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