London’s Economy

It could now be third-region envy. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire is not here to bait, so I shall confine myself to saying that if Birmingham and the midlands wish to be Barcelona to our Madrid, they will have to improve the food and the football somewhat. I would add that the other difference, of course, is that Catalonia actually pays for Castile, whereas in this case London pays for the rest of the United Kingdom. I do not want to anticipate my hon. Friend the Minister’s response to the debate, but I am sure that he was aware, before my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon spoke, of London’s contribution to the UK economy. His response may be in part, at least to Labour Members, that our party is still a redistributive party. I do not know whether that is true, but certainly the London Labour party continues to believe that to some measure, perhaps because we are more aware of the great inequalities of wealth that exist in the capital. In the brief time that is available to me, I shall not repeat points that other hon. Members have made but say that the consequence of what is happening at present is that redistribution is not working. The example of child poverty that was given earlier is perhaps the clearest instance of that. Fifty-two per cent. of children in inner London—39 per cent. in London as a whole—live in poverty, compared with 27 per cent. in the UK as a whole. That one stark statistic shows that the money that is generated by the capital is certainly not being redistributed within it. Beyond that, it is not economically efficient to run a capital city or any region on that basis. The problems cross the whole of the Government’s social and economic policy, but I wish briefly to mention three issues. The first, which has already been dealt with extensively, is transport. From a parochial perspective, it is necessary to deal with the scenario set out in the Transport for London 2025 document of a possible increase in demand at peak time of 30 per cent. That could happen in terms of bus, overground and tube services and, of course, Crossrail, all of which affect my constituency. I have the pleasure of travelling every day on the District line and the set-up at Earls Court station, with Bakelite telephones and flashing Christmas tree lights, is more like a fighter command than a modern railway network. It is sometimes a wonder to me how the tube functions at all. Investment over the next 10 or 20 years is not just an optional extra, but essential if London is to continue to function on a daily basis. I do not have time to say everything that I wish to say about policing, but it is a truism to say that London has additional pressures not only because of anti-terrorism measures and major events, but because of the general cost of policing, salaries and other costs, which are not reflected in the figures. We often have to fall back on the Mayor’s precept yet the Opposition hypocritically demand additional policing, while at the same time condemning every increase in precept made by the Mayor. To a large extent, that is because of a lack of fair funding from central Government to the capital. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) dealt with the issue of housing quite clearly and therefore I will briefly conclude by referring to that. Housing is the single issue that London Members would like the comprehensive spending review to address by providing an increase in funding for the supply of affordable homes—as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) said. The figures are eloquent in themselves: London has two thirds of households in temporary accommodation and half of the total national figure for overcrowding. We are at a tipping point in London and if we wish it to continue to be a city in which rich and poor can live together side by side, as they have done over the centuries, it needs investment, particularly in housing and in the needs of the population in constituencies such a mine. That is the plea that we make to the Minister today.