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3.27 pm
Mr. Neil Turner (Wigan): I shall begin by recounting some of my experiences as a councillor in Wigan. Although I was a councillor for more than the 18 years the previous Conservative Government lasted, I was nevertheless a councillor for all those 18 years of Conservative rule. Because it is clear that the Opposition suffer from selective amnesia, I remind the House of some of the things that that Government introduced. For example, capping was one of the worst things to be introduced in terms of the reduction in local authorities' ability to serve their communities. I remember cuts each year of the order of £7 million, £9 million and £10 million. We tried to protect education in our borough, and that meant cutting other areas of expenditure. The quality of our parks and streets declined. People saw that, but we kept our education going. In education at that time, we were beset by leaking roofs in our classrooms, classes of more than 35 pupils and outside toilets. Then there was compulsory competitive tendering, under which every council had almost to do the same at each individual point all the way down the line, as in the French education system. It was the most bureaucratic system ever devised.
In housing, rents were raised every year by much more than inflation. Those in work were driven out by the rent rises, and that resulted in sink estates, benefit dependency and falling standards in council houses. Nor was that restricted to public housing. In the private sector, the inner ring of housing built before the first world war that surrounds many of our towns and cities declined as older people were unable to put in money of their own and housing renewal area grants were taken away.
In our hospitals, there was no investment, closure of wards, the loss of beds, doctors and nurses, and growing waiting lists. Our communities, particularly the mining communities of the north, were ripped apart by politically motivated opposition to a strike. The coal industry was destroyed for purely political reasons. We had no help for those communities from the Conservative Government, and there was no help until the Labour Government introduced the coalfield communities fund.
Compare all that to what we have now. In Wigan, £58 million is available for our arm's length management association—ALMO—to improve housing. We hope for another £79 million, and I do not expect the Minister to give me a nod on that now, but I am sure that he will hear my plea and come up with the money in due course. That £140 million investment in housing will not just bring up the standard of our council housing, but provide additional services ensuring that we solve neighbourhood problems, which do exist. Those services will be able to deal with the environment of the houses, not just stopping at the fence or gate but going
beyond to ensure that our estates look decent. It will also help to create active tenants and residents associations, which are vital to the regeneration of estates and which need support from the housing department and the local authority.We are not putting money only into the public sector. The area where I live, Gidlow housing renewal area, is benefiting from investment of £6 million. It is the type of area I mentioned earlier, built before the first world war and home to lots of older people, formerly incapable because of their low incomes of keeping the houses in decent repair, but now able to do so because of that money.
Mr. Bercow: A few moments ago, the hon. Gentleman referred in passing to health. Given that, on Ministers' own admission, the huge increase in expenditure on and employment in the national health service has not been matched by a commensurate rise in the level of clinical activity, but that the Government claim to be committed to reforms, can the hon. Gentleman identify, from among all the reforms in the health service that the Government are implementing, just three?
Mr. Turner: I shall come later to health if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, and may answer his point. I want now to concentrate on where I am going on housing and our communities.
On the Gidlow housing renewal area, we are talking not just about renewal, but about making sure that community and local associations are built up and supported so that we have a proper community as well as decent housing. There are huge areas of deprivation in my constituency and the wider borough. We must look after them, and the neighbourhood renewal fund and coalfield communities fund are helping those areas on the basis of the nature of the communities. The results of all that investment are better tenants and residents associations, and more of them. We have better housing and better communities.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) said earlier, many more people are in work now, which is hugely important. People in the community are enabled to put something back into the community instead of living in benefits dependency.
The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) asked about health. There have been huge improvements in health. The refurbishment of accident and emergency units was one of the first improvements, and Wigan borough has a new walk-in centre in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham). There is a new clinic in Pemberton after investment of more than £1 million, and the Thomas Linacre out-patient centre in our town centre. Some £25 million has been invested in a new maternity unit, which is being built at this moment.
We have a £30 million LIFT—local improvement finance trust—programme, which will provide a community resource that involves primary care trusts, GPs and physiotherapists to ensure that needs are met without putting all the pressure on the NHS. The hon. Member for Buckingham asked me to name three improvements. The LIFT programme is certainly one of
them; it will ensure that GPs have proper health centres and will have a dramatic effect on the ability of the health service to address people's needs.
Tony Cunningham: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. You have talked about hospitals, but do you agree—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman must use correct parliamentary language.
Tony Cunningham: My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does my hon. Friend agree that, although schemes such as sure start and the health action zones have been of benefit, one of the greatest benefits for health is the tremendously low unemployment in our constituencies?
Mr. Turner: My hon. Friend is right. That is another knock-on effect of having an extra 1.5 million people in work. They not only contribute to the economy but, because they are taken out of poverty, their health is better and the education of their children is better. The whole community benefits.
It is purely coincidental that today the Greater Manchester strategic health authority issued a leaflet giving its results for last year. It states that no patient waited more than 12 months for in-patient or day-case treatment, compared with 1,600 a year ago; no patient waited more than 21 weeks for their first out-patient appointment, compared with 2,800 a year ago; and that the number of patients waiting more than 13 weeks for an out-patient appointment had been reduced by 49 per cent., or more than 5,000—2,200 better than the target. Investment and reform are providing the results that we all want.
Chris Grayling: As the hon. Gentleman is talking about health, I was going to point out that there are great concerns about health matters, such as obesity. However, he was making a point about waiting lists. Earlier, in Health questions, I pointed out that the 48-hour waiting time target for GP appointments could be met only by moving the goalposts. There are too many examples of the creative adjustment of waiting times. How can we have confidence in the figures that the hon. Gentleman has just given us when there are so many examples of fiddling the figures?
Mr. Turner: I am amazed that Conservative Members are talking about waiting lists. Their cuts in the health service created the whole waiting list problem in the first place. I shall move on, as other Members want to speak.
Our local authority always spent more than our standard spending assessment on education and that is still the case. Other councils did not do that, however, so because the Department for Education and Skills has rightly insisted on passporting to ensure that the money it provides is spent on education, they are now experiencing pressure. That is a problem that they will have to resolve.
Wigan has benefited tremendously from the £6 billion that the Government have put into education nationally. Our schools no longer have leaking roofs
and outside toilets. Children no longer have to worry that the asbestos roof in their school canteen may be contaminating their food. No child aged between five and seven is in a class of more than 30.There has been plenty of investment. Standish community high school is benefiting from investment of £1 million in new sporting facilities that will be used by the community.
Mr. Parmjit Dhanda (Gloucester): Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the biggest impacts on poor communities has been the effect of sure start? About 400,000 children benefit from 522 sure start centres, half a dozen of which are in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend find it ironic that the Conservatives talk about investment in education when their own document, which I have here, proposes not merely freezing funding for sure start but scrapping sure start altogether?
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