Listening to the Budget was like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole. It claimed the most extraordinary things—black is white, poverty has got nothing to do with money, the long-term plan lasts five months between Budgets in March and July, and the minimum wage is now the living wage even though it is not enough to live on. Apparently, it is a Budget for higher wages and a lower welfare economy, but we got a £5 billion wage increase at the expense of £12 billion of social security cuts.
Things get really Orwellian when the Government start talking about housing. Government Members may recall the modest proposal Labour made in relation to private rents. We were asking for just three years’ security. We were not asking for a great deal and we were not forcing rents down, but it was something—it was a start. But good heavens, one would have thought that civilisation as we knew it was about to end! The right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) got extremely excited and called it Venezuelan-style rent controls. So which socialist republic inspired the forced reduction of social rents, which has now been adopted by the Government?
The Government Benches seem to be populated by an awful lot of Maoists. We have heard about the Government’s two-child policy. It now seems that the Conservative party feels we ought to be doing something about pushing down social rents. Why? It would seem that Ministers have discovered that the housing benefit bill is ballooning. Well, yes! And why is that? It is hardly being caused by the social housing sector. Have Ministers not noticed the size of rents in London at the moment? At the very least, they are twice that of social rents. Frankly, Ministers should come with me and find out how much the private rented sector costs people who are trying to remain in Islington. Housing benefit has soared and Ministers have finally noticed it, but they ought to have noticed this: the number of working people claiming housing benefit shot up by 60% under the coalition Government. Ministers should also have noticed that of the increase in the total number of people relying on housing benefit since May 2010, 98% are private sector tenants.
Despite all the evidence, which comes from the Government’s own statistics, we have a proposal to cut spending on housing benefit by bringing down rents in the social sector, but that will not make a great deal of difference. Of course, the logic is this: it is yet another nail in the coffin of social housing. We have seen this agenda laid out in front of us for a long time: the Conservative party has not missed an opportunity to attack social housing. First, there were the cuts to social housing subsidy. Then we had forced conversions to the
Orwellianly named “affordable” rents of up to 80% of market value, which is hardly affordable in my constituency. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is pulling the most extraordinary face. What is 80% of market rent in his constituency, and to what extent is that affordable to his constituents? The Government have threatened to lower the benefit cap, extend the right to buy to social housing tenants and force the sale of more expensive council homes. Now there will be forced rent reductions, but only for social landlords. This is an assault on social housing. We know it, they know it and so do the public. We need to ensure the message gets out loud and clear, because it threatens an end to social housing as we know it. It is a disgrace and it is unforgiveable.
Large tranches of the Budget could have been predicted. The Conservatives talked about how much it would be, but they would not give us the details. Those of us who looked at chapter nine of the IFS green budget, “Options for reducing spending on social security”, would have been aware of it. Unfortunately, the Chancellor does not seem to have read up to chapter 10, “Options for increasing tax”, and there were so many good things in it. For example, he missed the option of raising £990 million by abolishing tax relief for empty properties, or raising £1.5 billion through a 1% increase in corporation tax. Instead, he chose to cut it.
This is not a one nation Budget. This Budget is all about the same old Tories: the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.
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