| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. St. Aubyn: Will the hon. Lady explain why, if so many extra resources are going to the health service, the accident and emergency unit at the Royal Surrey County hospital in Guildford is under threat of closure because of her Government's policies?
Ms Moran: I know that the major injection of money--£40 billion--into health and education is making significant improvements to health in my constituency and
others throughout the country. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman's constituency seems to be less effective in achieving those results.
Mr. St. Aubyn: Is the hon. Lady admitting that her Government are conducting a policy of political vindictiveness against those parts of the United Kingdom that dare not to vote for her party?
Ms Moran: I shall respond to that less-than-coherent question simply by saying that I am proud to be a member of a party that is targeting resources on the basis of need and tackling poverty and social exclusion.
Ms Keeble: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an indictment of the Conservatives' management of the health service that when they left government, they left a deficit of £2.9 million in West Surrey health authority--the area that the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) is now bleating on about?
Ms Moran: My hon. Friend's point eloquently illustrates the economic incompetence of the previous Government, who left us with record debts and with poor services that had suffered from consistent cuts over 18 years.
We are now looking to the second comprehensive spending review, and I am proud that the Government have promised that there will be further increases in the amounts available for health and education, which will move further towards achieving our target of creating a fairer society by tackling inequality and poverty. The most difficult test, however, is whether, at the end of our term in office, we will be able to say that we offered opportunity to the very poorest and most socially excluded, because that task is infinitely more complex.
In the central wards of my constituency not only do families suffer high levels of child mortality, but the unemployment rate among black and Asian men is four times higher than the national average, and a third of housing is unfit or below acceptable standards of fitness. Around £50 million is needed to tackle our housing problems in Luton alone.
Before the Chancellor gets his pen out in the new year and does his public spending sums, I shall suggest a few ways in which we can make even more effective use of the additional resources going to our poorest neighbourhoods. First, we need to invest further in our housing stock and to streamline housing finance to enable us to make the most effective investment decisions, which will bring sustainable benefit to the communities who need it most. Secondly, we need a more radical approach to helping communities to help themselves. Thirdly, we need to reform the way in which we deal with public expenditure, to ensure that we achieve maximum impact, and it is important that every anti-poverty pound does just that.
I am aware that housing finance is not often discussed in this place. A subliminal anorak alert goes off when it is mentioned, and the sane flee the Chamber. However, we will not tackle the deep-rooted problems of poverty that we have inherited unless we reform housing finance and tackle the high levels of continuing unmet housing need and the £20 billion backlog of disrepair, which we also inherited from the previous Government.
It is well known that housing benefit needs to be reformed to tackle the poverty trap, and I shall say little on the subject--save that long-term housing policy decisions are needed. Housing benefit spending is decreasing except in the private rented sector, where rent allowances are projected to rise from over £5 billion this year to £8 billion in 2002, which is, again, largely a legacy of the previous Government's policies, which moved housing investment away from bricks and mortar and into personal subsidy.
There are two ways for the Chancellor to achieve value for money and increase equality. The first is to link housing benefit spend to housing standards. Secondly, the Chancellor needs to address the problem of low-income home owners, who at the moment do not receive help with their housing costs. Certainly in my constituency--once dubbed the mortgage misery capital of the country--there are as many low-income home owners in need of housing support as there are people renting.
The action that this Government have taken to tackle housing benefit fraud is warmly to be welcomed. There is more to be done, but such action is none the less in sharp contrast to that of the previous Government, who removed financial incentives from local authorities that were determined to tackle housing benefit fraud. We should hear fewer pronouncements from the Opposition Benches, since the Conservatives' record in tackling housing benefit fraud was nothing short of lamentable.
This Government recognise that we cannot tackle poverty and social exclusion without tackling housing need. So, first, I want to say thank you to the Government and the Chancellor. Announced, but little noticed last week, was the housing investment programme of £2.1 billion--a 48 per cent. increase in housing spending to tackle the £5 billion backlog of disrepair that we inherited as a result of the previous Government's savage cuts.
Investment in housing in 1998-99 was double that in 1996-97. That is a result of this Government's delivering on the capital initiatives project--one of their very first schemes and a clear demonstration of their commitment to housing investment. As set out in the comprehensive spending review, we are now on target to spend an extra £4.7 billion this Parliament on improving our housing conditions and tackling housing need.
In addition, there have been very important changes, recently debated, on resource accounting, which begins in April 2001 and which could add a further £2 billion to housing revenue accounts in England in the first year and increases in line with inflation thereafter. This Government are wisely earmarking that money for tackling the backlog of disrepair and maintaining the value of a significant national asset--our housing stock.
In all of that, we have made a significant start in tackling the problems of unmet housing need and disrepair, but I should like to tempt Santa Brown, the Chancellor, to consider a possible millennium present to every family in poor housing. He could release for housing investment some of the £10.2 billion surplus that has accumulated in housing revenue accounts across the country. The Treasury accumulates about £1.4 billion a year in such surpluses, and a small contribution from that
would go a long way to an excellent millennium present for many families who are in poor housing or, indeed, homeless.I also ask the Chancellor to consider a bonfire of the regulations surrounding housing finance. With the introduction of resource accounting, virtually all local authorities' capital assets must make a return and they will not be able to spend past free capital. That therefore removes some of the need for the vast array of rules governing spending, borrowing and subsidy on housing revenue accounts. As a result, normal rules of financial prudence would apply to the management of housing revenue accounts and the bamboozle factor of housing finance, so beloved of people like me in my former career as a housing professional, would be removed.
Such moves would allow greater transparency for tenants, reduce bureaucracy and, most important, facilitate much clearer and cheaper decisions, involving fewer consultants, on where to spend money, on housing transfer, on public-private partnerships and on the retention of housing stock.
At the same time, we must review the general needs and the housing needs indexes--the systems that allocate housing resources, which are based on several factors many of which appear to work in opposite directions. In summary, we urgently need a more flexible framework that will better enable us to target areas of greatest need and solve local housing problems.
That brings me to a further point: tackling poverty and social exclusion is not just about unlocking more public money, but requires a revolution in the relationship between state and citizen and between central and local government. It is no coincidence that the poorest families are locked in social housing estates--partly because of allocation and benefit rules, which we much address, and partly because of lack of opportunities.
More than a third of social housing residents have weekly incomes of less than £100 a week and, according to a recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, their unemployment rates are double those of people with other tenures. That is why it is so important that, if we want to address the most deep-rooted pockets of poverty, we must tackle social housing. I ask the Government and the Chancellor to look boldly at new policies such as tax incentives to encourage greater flexibility in the housing market and greater tenant control of social housing.
We need genuine, bottom-up community solutions to local problems. I think that the Government are committed to doing just that. That is why I welcome the introduction of new deal communities. Luton was one of the areas selected as a pilot. The scheme will greatly benefit local housing and job prospects.
If we are to tackle the worst aspects of poverty and social exclusion, we must also reform ourselves in this House. There are certainly areas in my constituency that are receiving unprecedented funding through various Government initiatives--zones, new deals and pilots too numerous to mention. If we are to make the most effective use of all the resources provided for our communities, we must ensure an intermeshing of all those zones and pilots.
We also ought to look in the comprehensive spending review at our funding framework. Government still operate in spending silos, and that makes it all the more difficult, particularly at community level, to effect joined-up action. We need much greater integration of
budgets across the public sector, based not so much on departmental silos but on outcomes and areas. I know that we are making that move, but perhaps we need to do so more speedily.I have listened to Conservative Members' arguments and can only conclude that they are not aware that this Government are making a major impact on constituencies like mine through increases in public spending--the £40 billion going into health and education, the new deal, which has reduced youth unemployment, the working families tax credit, which has put an extra £17 a week in the pockets of Luton families, and the national minimum wage, which has lifted many of those families out of poverty.
I am angry even so, because only now are Luton families recovering from the devastation of the Tory decades--from record repossessions; from record business failures; and from record poverty, which increased during their term in office.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |