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9.12 pm
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): I begin by welcoming the Under-Secretary and the Minister of State to their present positions. We have heard some fine maiden speeches from Members on both sides of the House. At times, there has been a sporting theme, but we began with the speech by the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Valerie Davey), who showed her great knowledge of her constituency. She also paid a proper tribute to William Waldegrave, a distinguished Member of this House who gave great public service at the highest levels of government and--as she generously acknowledged--gave great service also to his constituents.
The hon. Member for Bristol, West is clearly familiar with many aspects of the housing problem in Bristol, and I know that Bristol has a high level of housing need. The previous Government extended the rough sleepers' initiative to Bristol. I wish her well in addressing those problems and in representing the constituency which she described as having the second-largest electorate after the Isle of Wight.
The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor)--a native of Bury--spoke with great feeling about Bury, and he is clearly committed to his constituency. He paid an appropriate tribute to his predecessor, Alistair Burt, who worked extremely hard in government. He was, if I may say so, an unassuming but hard-working character who was popular in this House. He also was a son of Bury, and was very popular in the constituency.
That was the beginning of the sporting allusions, as we heard a great deal about Bury. We then heard from the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes), who said that we would be more familiar with her constituency as the home of Old Trafford. She, too, spoke very well, paying an appropriate tribute to Winston Churchill.
The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) paid an appropriate tribute to Robert Hughes, a lively Member of Parliament who made a contribution in many different ways and was, as I know as a near neighbour of his, a most assiduous constituency Member.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Coleman) spoke about the housing problems in his constituency. I have some knowledge of those problems, having seen a presentation from the local authority. There are particular problems there, and some poverty, notwithstanding its proximity to central London. The hon. Gentleman spoke knowledgeably, and I appreciated his comments about Matthew Carrington, who was also well respected by his constituents and by the House.
I appreciated the speech by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley). His predecessor, John Biffen, would greatly have appreciated the way in which he began his speech, and I wish him well in representing his constituents. He certainly follows a most distinguished predecessor who was a strong House of Commons man. We also heard from the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who made a good speech and paid an appropriate tribute to Roger Knapman, who was also popular in the House and a good constituency Member.
We then moved from football to rugby league, which I enjoy. I appreciated the maiden speeches by the hon. Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Watts), who spoke well about the problems that concern his constituents, and by the hon. Members for Liverpool, Garston (Ms Eagle) and for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson). The latter paid an appropriate tribute to Patrick Thompson, who was a most hard-working Member of Parliament and an assiduous constituency Member.
The last Labour Member from whom we heard was the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell), who spoke most appropriately about his constituency. As one who follows Yorkshire cricket, I think that he did justice to the distinguished cricketing antecedents of Pudsey. He paid a generous tribute to Sir Giles Shaw that was accurate in every respect. Sir Giles was a popular and distinguished Member of Parliament and an assiduous constituency Member. The hon. Gentleman made an excellent maiden speech.
The hon. Member for Taunton (Mrs. Ballard) made a good and knowledgeable speech from the Liberal Benches. I appreciate the tribute that she paid to David Nicholson, who took a lively interest in housing matters and would have wanted to take part in this debate had he been here.
The last maiden speech that we heard was from my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond). It was an excellent speech, and he spoke forcefully about his constituency and his constituents' interests. I, like him, represent a constituency on the borders of London, in the home counties, with all the tensions that exist there in trying to strike the right balances in planning and transport to get a good quality of life. He showed a real feeling for his constituents' problems and made a telling contribution to the debate on the Bill.
We heard good non-maiden speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), for Stone (Mr. Cash), for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn). A common strand running through those speeches was the large number of questions that the Bill leaves unanswered.
The Bill is in many ways shrouded in mystery. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire put it appropriately when he said that it was a smokescreen. That reminded me of a description applied by my right hon. and learned Friend the shadow Chancellor to the statement on a comprehensive spending review given to the House by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury last week. My right hon. and learned Friend rightly described that announcement as
It was a common misconception on the part of the Labour party in opposition that the capital receipts were being put to no good use. Certainly, the former spokesman on environment matters--now the Secretary of State for Health--propagated that view. He brought his economic wisdom and powers of analysis to bear on this problem in much the same way that he is bringing them to bear on the health service, with similar consequences. It was certainly the view of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), who will reply to the debate. He thought that the capital receipts were wasted, were idle and not being used properly and served no good purpose. He imparted that view to Committees.
As the Under-Secretary of State will probably have discovered now that he has entered government, the truth is that the capital receipts have been put to perfectly prudent and proper use. They have been used to service debt and to keep council tax bills and rents down. The hon. Gentleman will now appreciate that. He has had to confess--this is the most interesting feature of the Bill--that there is a direct link between the capital receipts and public expenditure. Every pound of capital receipts released is an extra pound of public spending. The hon. Gentleman has now faced up to that, but he was not prepared to acknowledge it in the past. He did not acknowledge it when he spoke about the capital receipts being wasted.
We need more details about the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire made a telling point. As he said, it is a shame that we could not have had the consultative paper before this debate. It is a shame, too, that the debate could not have been more co-ordinated with the Budget statement because we need to know how the measure will be paid for.
I asked the Under-Secretary of State to tell us in his reply whether the public expenditure implication will be met from within the budget of the Department of the Environment. Will it be met through a cut in other departmental programmes or will it be transferred to the Treasury? Are we going to have to be told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the public sector borrowing requirement will be increased, that there will have to be cuts in some other Departments' programmes, or that there will be an increase in taxation?
What has clearly emerged from this debate is that the Bill is part of a black hole in the Labour party's plans--a black hole between its plans and how they will be paid for. The Under-Secretary of State will have to say a little
more about that in his reply. He will also have to tell us a little more about how the spending of the capital receipts will be phased than the Minister of State did in her opening speech. The hon. Lady said that it would be phased over a prudent period. Can we be told how long that will be? What is a period that is consistent with prudent financial management? Can the Under-Secretary of State tell us when the first tranche will be released? Will it be this year? When will the release take place and how much will it consist of? The hon. Lady is saying that she does not know, but we need to know the answers to those questions if we are to form a judgment on the Bill.
Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State can also tell us how the capital receipts will be released and about the implications for capital receipt rich authorities. We heard from the hon. Lady that there might be an implication for them in the form of what she described as a distribution based one third on possession of capital receipts and two thirds on need. We need to know a little more about that. I am sure that those hon. Members, including Labour Members, who spoke about authorities with capital receipts, such as Vale Royal and Flintshire, will seek reassurance from the Government that their authorities will not be penalised by the mechanism for distributing capital receipts.
What will happen to future capital receipts? We would also like to know more about clause 2, which is bald and bold. As my hon. Friends the Members for South Cambridgeshire and for Mole Valley (Sir P. Beresford) said, it appears to give local authorities a licence to spend and borrow, and to be at variance with prudent financial management. We need more answers on that.
Unless all our questions are properly answered, we will begin to suspect that the Bill, which merely takes into account capital receipts in the allocation of supplementary credits, embodies a bogus policy. The more we hear about it, the more bogus it seems, particularly when we discover that it does not involve the release of an economic free good but more public spending, which will have to be paid for in other ways.
If Labour Members want to know the difference between a bogus policy and one that brings real benefit to people, carried through by a truly radical Government, they could do no better than to consider how the capital receipts arose in the first place. It was largely due to council tenants exercising the right to buy and becoming home owners. Since 1979, in England and Wales alone 1.3 council tenants became home owners. As Conservative Members reminded the Government, Labour local authorities hardly danced with glee about it. That is part of the general extension of home owning since 1979. Those 1.3 million people are part of the 4 million householders who have become home owners since 1979. There has been a significant increase in the proportion of the population owning their own homes, up from 56 to 68 per cent. Those are all things from which we take great credit.
Labour Members would do well to consider the radical ways by which we succeeded in making public money go further through levering in private finance. In her opening speech, the Minister of State tiptoed towards acknowledging the success of many of our initiatives, particularly in talking about partnerships and transfer as the best route for getting private finance into the public sector. She would do well to acknowledge frankly our success with the large-scale voluntary transfer programme
and the £3.8 billion of private finance levered in for 53 local authorities. That is bringing benefit to tens of thousands of tenants up and down the country, including tenants in the very poorest estates, who benefit from the estates renewal challenge fund, the latest round of which in February saw £140 million of public money lever in some £300 million of private finance. Those are real policies, bringing real benefits to people, in many cases people in the greatest need.
Such policies have shown how public money can be used to lever in additional private money and give the best possible value. While the Minister tiptoed towards acknowledging their success, in some speeches from Labour Members there seemed to be a residual antipathy to private sector involvement through large-scale voluntary transfer and to bringing in private money.
"a whole lot of smoke and mirrors".--[Official Report, 11 June 1997; Vol. 295, c. 1145.]
17 Jun 1997 : Column 203
If that was smoke and mirrors, this was a bonfire in the hall of mirrors. If the Bill achieves anything, it is to make the comprehensive spending review look like a model of transparency and clarity.
When we consider the history of the pledge that lies behind the Bill, we see why there is a need for so much smoke and camouflage. The Labour party has long created the impression that the capital receipts were standing idle, were not being properly used and were waiting to be unlocked--a sort of pot of gold, an economic free good as my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) said in opening for the Opposition, or a sock under the bed.
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