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Mr. Archie Norman (Tunbridge Wells): I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for that statement, and for the advance copies of it that he supplied. I welcome him back to the Chamber after the recent important debates on the tube, the Transport Bill and other matters. Sometimes I think that we see him only when there is a glossy brochure to produce or a disaster to announce.
Mr. Phil Hope (Corby): Where were you?
Mr. Norman: I was here in the Chamber on Monday, as Labour Members well know.
The subject of the statement is a matter of commitment and passion that is shared by all parties. The failure of our inner cities over the past three decades or more has been the engine of poverty, deprivation and social failure. Inner cities account for 54 per cent. of crime in the country, and the figure is rising. They are the source of lost opportunity and are the root cause of children left behind by the prosperity enjoyed by the rest of the country.
I should like to join the Deputy Prime Minister in paying tribute to Lord Rogers, who has produced a formidable report on the subject. He has played a valiant role in the past year, lobbying and harassing the Government into producing the statement that we have heard today.
At last, three and a half years into a Labour Government, we have a White Paper. At first glance, we welcome the White Paper and many of its proposals. However, people will judge it not by its grandiose words, but by whether it accepts the hard recommendations made by Lord Rogers and addresses the fundamental criticisms that have been made of Government policy in the past.
The Financial Times said today that the Government were nervous about the reception of their White Paper. Is that surprising when, according to our first-cut tally of the White Paper, of the 105 recommendations made by the Rogers report only 14 have been met in full? Some 34 have been fudged or delayed and 57 are either not addressed in the White Paper or have been rejected outright. Many people living in our cities will think that a very disappointing tally--too little, too late. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Deputy Prime Minister had a proper hearing, and so should the Opposition spokesman.
Mr. Norman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to address four fundamental points. First, the Government have been criticised in the past for their failure to co-ordinate the various initiatives on urban regeneration. The Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs said:
- There is a lack of co-ordination between local, regional and national Government . . .
The Government have been criticised for dissipating resources and applying Elastoplast solutions--for doing the easy things but neglecting the tough actions. What has happened to the primary legislation that Lord Rogers called for to strengthen the powers of regeneration companies? What has happened to the much vaunted urban priority areas which would have enabled more far-reaching and rapid delivery of change? Has the Deputy Prime Minister rejected these recommendations, which were fundamental to the Rogers report, or has he just been thwarted by the Treasury?
In the past three years, the Deputy Prime Minister has cut the amount of money spent on regeneration. Will he now clarify what--if anything--in today's announcement represents new money or new tax incentives? Or does it consist entirely of reheated announcements from the past? Has he been comprehensively pre-empted by the pre-Budget announcement?
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a £1 billion tax package, already mentioned by the Chancellor last week. Is that not to be spread over five years, with only £163 million of it for next year?
More specifically, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us definitively his attitude to the zero VAT rating on new houses built on green fields? Has he rejected Lord Rogers' recommendation of levelling the playing field between urban regeneration and greenfield development, because the statement appears to be silent on that subject?
Does the Deputy Prime Minister recognise the growing concern, expressed by Lord Rogers, the Rowntree Foundation and many others, about the continuing exodus from our cities and about his commitment to accelerate that exodus by building 900,000 unwanted new homes in the south-east and 500,000 in the south-west? Does he not recognise that that is a plan that flies in the face of all that the statement is designed to achieve? It will accelerate the migration of the better-off and able from the inner cities to the countryside, and from the north to the south.
Finally, does the Deputy Prime Minister recognise that summits in 2002 and Cabinet Committees are all very well, but in six months' time when he retires from office
he will be judged not by his promises but by his record? By the time he retires, the hard facts will be that he will have spent less on regeneration in our inner cities than did the previous Conservative Government; and there will be 3,000 more homeless people than he inherited, 51 per cent. more people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, 3,000 more empty council houses, and rising crime in almost every major city. Of all the new jobs that the Government claim to have created, only 10 per cent. will be in the inner cities. According to the Government's statistics, 300,000 more people are living below the poverty line and the exodus from our cities has accelerated, not declined--all that at a time of unprecedented prosperity.Is not the real record one of rising poverty, a widening north/south divide and the neglect of our inner cities? Is not the real truth that this is a Government who have flunked the big decisions and masqueraded as the party of the inner cities, but have betrayed their own heartlands?
Mr. Prescott: That was a bantam weight contribution by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman). As for appearances in the House, I have an interesting note from the Library: I have appeared at oral questions four or five times more often than the hon. Gentleman since he has been on the Conservative Front Bench, and I have been here more--or at least an equal amount of time--for statements. So I am before the House more often than the hon. Gentleman. I have embarked on a secret strategy to improve the relationship between us, however: absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman's endorsement of the report and congratulations to Lord Rogers and his urban team, who have produced an important piece of work. I also welcome the noble Lord's support for the report, which he made clear on the "Today" programme, and for the new financial measures announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. It was inevitable that I should have to wait for the Chancellor's announcement before the measures could be included in the White Paper--that is normal practice. The fact that I repeated the announcement does not make the measures irrelevant, as they are part of the package.
The big decision is that £180 billion will be going into the transport industry. We are often asked in the House, "Where are the resources?" I have catalogued all the billions of pounds that will be available to improve investment in the social structure in our cities and towns, which the previous Administration failed to provide. Admittedly, the hon. Gentleman was not responsible for the decisions of the previous Administration, but he was certainly a member of the Conservative party at the time, so I am surprised to hear any complaint from him. The Conservatives doubled homelessness, put an awful lot of people out of their homes because of negative equity, and at the same time held back £5 billion from the sale of council houses, refusing to invest it in new housing. We have released resources that the previous Administration deliberately kept in accounts while the quality of homes in our inner cities declined year on year--they simply would not put the money back in to improve houses. That was one of our first decisions. Our housing programme of the past three years compares favourably with any record of the previous Administration.
As to how many of Lord Rogers' recommendations have been accepted, a number have been implemented in part or fully and we disagreed with only six--I mentioned
one, which was the urban policy board. I shall take the evidence of Lord Rogers himself; on the "Today" programme, he made it clear that the White Paper is a powerful tool for the regeneration of our cities--
Mr. Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham): He has not seen it.
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