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7.16 pm
Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster, Central): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) on her evocative and passionate speech. Her experience as a Westminster councillor has made her an expert on housing and local government. I am sure that her constituents will appreciate that. I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech on this important Bill, which will benefit directly the lives of many of my constituents in Doncaster, Central by improving housing provision and generating much-needed jobs.
In making a maiden speech, it is customary to refer to one's immediate predecessor. I would like to go much further by paying a heartfelt tribute to Sir Harold Walker. He turned a Conservative seat into a Labour one in 1964, and served the people of Doncaster, Central loyally for 33 years. The people of Doncaster returned that loyalty with not only deep respect but true affection. Those feelings did not stem only from the fact that Sir Harold was an excellent constituency Member. Doncaster people are proud of Harold's national work. He was the longest-serving Employment Minister and piloted through Parliament the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, the Employment Protection Act 1975, and the Equal Pay Act 1970. He reformed the Merchant Shipping Acts and introduced many other pieces of legislation that bettered the employment conditions of millions of working people. Sir Harold went on to occupy with great distinction the position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways and Means for nine years.
Sir Harold's one shortcoming is his time-keeping, which is due only to the fact that he so enjoys talking to people that he is often delayed in getting to meetings. He takes jokes about it in good heart, and during the general election campaign he apologised to an assembled company for his delayed arrival by saying, rather proudly, "I am of course known throughout Doncaster as the late Sir Harold Walker."
During the general election campaign, I was reminded time after time by constituents of what a hard act to follow Harold would be. That was an unnerving experience, but Harold and his wife Mary did everything possible to help me during the campaign. They both worked tirelessly on my behalf; I could not have asked for more. Harold is not the tallest of men, and perhaps derives some pleasure from the thought that whilst he cannot tower over many people, he can at least tower over his successor.
Doncaster is renowned for its coal mining, its railways and its thoroughbred horse racing, which takes place on the Town Moor course. The Grand St. Leger, as I am sure hon. Members know, is one of the highlights of the racing calendar. There is one other fact about Doncaster that I hope will cause Ministers to look favourably on my constituency. In 1899, the Doncaster branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants sent a motion to the Trades Union Congress meeting in Plymouth. The motion called on the TUC to organise a joint conference with socialist and co-operative bodies to discuss Labour representation. Thus it was really in Doncaster that the Labour party was conceived. I am sure that hon. Members will be delighted to learn that the foundation meeting of the society was held at the Good Woman inn at St. Sepulchre Gate in Doncaster.
For me, being the area's Member of Parliament is a special honour, as I was brought up in Doncaster. My mother Valerie was a nursery school teacher, and my father Gordon a local head teacher--and, later, an elected representative on Doncaster council. Let me take this opportunity to thank not only the electors of Doncaster, Central for giving me the privilege of serving them, but the members of the constituency Labour party for campaigning for me in the recent historic general election, with its Labour landslide.
Yorkshire people are famous for the warmth of their welcome, and the people of Doncaster are no exception. Since the election, I have been overwhelmed by people's generosity and kindness, and I intend to repay that by doing my best to represent their interests in the House.
The Bill that we are discussing is about achieving two of the Government's important objectives, jobs and social justice. When it is passed, councils such as mine in Doncaster will at last be able to use some of the money that they have in the bank from the sale of council houses to modernise existing homes and to build desperately needed new ones. The consequent building and refurbishment programme can be used to provide much-needed jobs and training in Doncaster. I believe that the Bill will end 18 years of unremitting underinvestment in housing in Doncaster.
More than 5,000 people in my constituency alone are victims of Tory neglect, waiting for homes and worried about accommodation for themselves and their families. They deserve better, and the Bill will help them in their aspirations for a better life. Too many people in the Doncaster area are out of work, alienated and disaffected because they see little hope or future. The knock-on effects on society, in terms of crime and the growing drug culture, are frightening to witness.
Much of the drive for change that will be brought about by the Bill is due to our two Ministers' lifetime commitment to decent housing for all, and to local government. I understand that the Government will be looking to the construction industry to provide a significant number of new jobs and apprenticeships, but let me take that further, and ask whether the Ministers will visit my constituency to hear at first hand from a cross-section of representatives of my local authority and the voluntary and private sectors what Doncaster can do to assist in achieving the Government's stated aims--securing jobs and social justice.
Britain's housing problems cannot be eliminated overnight, and unemployment cannot be made to disappear immediately, but both difficulties can be alleviated through the regional development planning to which my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions and his Ministers are dedicated. The Yorkshire and Humberside region could become the most exciting growth area in the country. From Sheffield to Humberside stretches a conurbation of great economic potential, where considerable growth could take place. Through the policies of my right hon. Friend and his Ministers, that growth will be encouraged, cultivated and fashioned to bring about a regeneration of Yorkshire and Humberside.
Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) on a fine maiden speech. From the sound of it, she is deeply rooted in her community in Doncaster, and her speech suggests that she will make a fine representative of her constituents.
I apologise if I am about to tread on convention, but may I also take the opportunity to welcome the Minister of State, the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong), to the Government Front Bench? I do so particularly because it was she who frustrated my first attempt to gain entry to the House, back in 1992.
To the uninitiated, the Bill will seem very simple--it covers slightly less than a page in words of substance--but, as the Minister made clear in her opening remarks, it deals with a number of complex issues, although, given what has been said by Labour Members, some of them have failed to reach even them. Some of my hon. Friends have referred to those complexities, particularly the Bill's impact on the public sector borrowing requirement. That was mentioned in the eloquent maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) who, I believe, introduced the term smokescreen in relation to the Bill. He was referring to the Government's attempt to avoid, or smoke over, the Bill's impact on the PSBR and on local authorities. Some of my hon. Friends have also mentioned the potential impact on rents, which has been identified by Shelter.
Smokescreen, however, is a term that can be used about the Bill in another sense. A number of Labour Members have said that the Bill is a response to the Labour party's manifesto commitment to release capital receipts set aside from the sale of council houses and to use the money to improve council housing or to build new stock. The Bill does not do that: it is not about the release of capital receipts from the sale of council houses. It is a Bill for borrowing--a Bill which increases the ability to borrow, but does not refer to the release of receipts. As the Library makes clear in its research paper, although the explanatory memorandum states that
The Bill is something of a smokescreen for another reason. As the Minister made clear in her opening remarks, there will be criteria on which the ability to exercise supplementary credit approvals will be judged. Reference was made to that being based on need. As yet, we do not have the definitions of the criteria and we do not know in detail how the process of deciding which
local authorities will be able to benefit from the supplementary credit approvals will operate. It is unfortunate that the Government did not delay publication of the Bill until they had those details. If they had, we would have been able to consider the dual aspects of the Bill--the process by which extra supplementary credit approvals will be given and the definitions by which those approvals will be judged appropriate. As it stands, we have no idea how the approvals will be allocated to local authorities. It would have been preferable for the Government to wait until that detail was known.
For some time, many of us have found the operation of the definition of need by the former Department of the Environment as less than satisfactory. I know about Wokingham district council's concern at the somewhat arbitrary way in which the definition of need appeared to be exercised by that Department when deciding the standard spending assessment according to the agreed formula. It would have been far better to be able to scrutinise how those supplementary credit approvals will be identified and allocated before having to decide whether to support the Bill.
There are many other aspects to the Bill that I would have preferred to be at the fore. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) spoke about the extent to which we should not be talking simply about local authorities' ability to improve housing or to increase their housing stock, but about how that could be done in partnerships or by housing associations.
Several Labour Members have made heartfelt, passionate speeches about the condition of the housing stock in different parts of the country. It has long been my belief that the quality of the housing stock represents a record of failure over many years by local authorities to manage it. I do not believe that local authorities are very good at that job. One of my concerns about the Bill is the underlying assumption that money will be released primarily to local authorities to improve housing stock. I note that the Minister is shaking her head, so I trust that the Government will be looking at other engines to improve the housing stock or to build new housing. If that is the case, I am grateful to the Government.
"this measure will 'allow the controlled release of reserved receipts from the sale of council houses', the detail on how this will be achieved is not in the Bill."
The Bill is not about releasing money set aside from the sale of council houses; it is about increasing borrowing--which is why it is all the more unfortunate that Labour Members have not said more about its impact on overall public sector borrowing and public sector finance in general.
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