Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-09
Topic: Housing
John Eugene Joseph Dromey (Labour, Centre-left): On this issue, we are as one. We are working together in the west midlands to construct the midlands powerhouse and realise the full potential of the midlands. What was surprising yesterday was that the Chancellor waxed lyrical about the remarkable Greater Manchester, mentioned the northern powerhouse in considerable detail and referred to just about every other part of Britain, and at the end of his remarks made a throwaway reference to the midlands powerhouse. That has not gone down well in the midlands Crucially, at the next stages what the Chancellor cannot do is empower but impoverish. One of the great problems with this Government is that everything they do is characterised by a fundamental unfairness of approach. Some £700 million has been cut from the budget of Birmingham City Council—£2,000 for every household—yet in the Chancellor’s own constituency there has been an increase in spending power of 2.6%. Likewise, the West Midlands police have been treated unfairly. If they were treated fairly, they would be entitled to £43 million more—enough for 500 police officers back on the beat We will never be one nation while the Chancellor and the Government continue to demonise and divide, with their talk of shirkers or strivers, work or benefits. I was born in poverty—my father a navvy, my mother training to be a nurse; they worked hard to get on. I have always believed that those who can work should work, but I object to wicked caricatures of the sort we heard yesterday in relation to the young homeless—"they come out of school, they go on benefits, then they want to get a flat" Three years ago, I hosted in the House of Commons the Homeless Young People’s Parliament in Parliament—quintessentially middle England, middle Scotland, middle Wales young people, the best of Britain, who had ended up homeless, overwhelmingly through no fault of their own. Last Friday, I was at Orchard Village, which serves young homeless people in my constituency. It is substantially dependent on housing benefit for its income and now faces closure If we are to be one nation, the Chancellor cannot continue to play politics with the United Kingdom, posing one nation against the other. EVEL—if ever there was an accurate acronym, that is it As for the Tories being the party of working people, they introduced in the Budget a tax on aspiration, saying to working families in social housing, "If you get on, you have to pay much more or move out." The party of working people? On Sunday trading, I agree with what was just said. One of Labour’s greatest achievements, the weekend, is now threatened by this Conservative Government, who would compel seven-day working, in reality forcing millions of retail workers, particularly women, to work on Sunday and putting at risk thousands of small stores all over the country The party of working people, with the so-called living wage? Yesterday, when the Chancellor spoke about this, he grinned like a Cheshire cat and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions punched the air, as if England had scored the winning goal in the World cup. The living wage? Twelve years ago, I was a founder member of the drive for the living wage, working through the former Transport and General Workers Union, with the East London Citizens Organisation and London Citizens, to organise, for example, thousands of cleaners in Canary Wharf and the City of London and the first-ever strike in the history of the House of Commons to win the living wage. This is not the living wage or a "new contract" with the British people, as the Chancellor called it this morning; this is a con trick by a cunning Chancellor, who gives with one hand and takes away with the other In the west midlands, 56% of families are on tax credits and 300,000 children depend on tax credits. Yet a family with two children and one full-time earner on £20,000-plus now faces losing £2,000: for every £1 they get from a higher living wage, they will lose £2 in tax credits. What is the Government’s answer? They say, "Ah, the £9". That is £9 in 2020, but they are cutting tax credits in the here and now.