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Amendment of the law

Of course, the rate at which unemployment is rising depends on the base from which it starts. I can comment with particular knowledge about my city of Sheffield, and that is what I will do. As I have pointed out, we certainly benefited from the period of a Labour Government and their actions. Despite the fact that we will have problems—people in Sheffield will lose their jobs and we should recognise the individual trauma that that causes them and their families—many companies are nevertheless doing well, and we should not forget about them. Nor should we forget about the Advanced manufacturing park, which is located just in Rotherham but works with the university of Sheffield. Through that partnership we are now working to redress a long-term British problem, which is that we do well in research and invention, but not so very well in innovating and extending that research and invention into products. That is what the Advanced manufacturing park is all about, and its work with Boeing and a number of other high-tech companies will spin off into jobs for the future. Then there are companies such as Forgemasters, which had an appalling experience with the floods last year. However, Forgemasters took on 40 new apprentices only a few months ago and has order books for the future. The company is now looking for serious investment and exports most of its products throughout the world. Forgemasters will be a key player in the development of our nuclear industry, because it has the capacity to produce some of the most important parts for nuclear plants. The other day I went to a firm on the edge of my constituency, just in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), called Davy Markham, which is also a success story. A management buy-out of a firm in difficulties a few years ago, Davy Markham now has an order book for months ahead and is exporting most of its work. The managing director said to me, "I can take on any skilled machinist who walks through the door, because we are successful and producing products that are needed." Davy Markham makes massive machining products for turbines and other parts. That is a niche market, but the company is a success story. However, we should also learn the lessons for those companies from what happened in the past. One of the problems for those firms is the legacy of the lack of training for so many years after the recessions of the 1980s, the effects of which still lingers today. We took away a swathe of skilled operatives and did not train any more. Therefore, firms such as Davy Markham are still suffering today from a shortage of experienced, skilled operatives, even though they run their own training schemes. We must ensure that the recession of the day does not leave for the future the sorts of legacies that we suffered from after the recessions of the 1980s. I therefore welcome the help being given to businesses through capital allowances, the deferment of business rates and the strategic investment fund. All are important to ensure that our successful high-tech firms with export markets are sustained for the future, and helped and encouraged to train the people who will be needed when the recovery comes. I also welcome the measures taken on the environment. Those on carbon capture, offshore wind farms and combined heat and power are all important moves to sustain those industries and ensure that we fulfil our international climate change commitments. I also hope that some of the measures that we have taken to support industry will help to sustain and develop firms in the green transport sector, which is something that I am particularly keen on. Indeed, I have two ministerial meetings arranged with two companies in my constituency that have some very interesting proposals. One of those companies is called ITM and is developing ways of producing hydrogen much more cheaply than has been possible in the past. The firm has developed a refrigerator-sized unit for domestic properties that can produce hydrogen that people can then put into their cars. That is an interesting development, because it means that we do not need a great network of sites throughout the country; rather, people can use the unit in their own homes. The unit may not yet be commercially viable, but the research, the invention and the innovation are there, and it is absolutely fascinating. The Government are looking at help for electric cars, but if we are to help to develop green transport in the future, hydrogen-powered cars will probably be a much more exciting and relevant possibility. When Jeremy Clarkson can welcome an environmentally friendly car as a real possibility on "Top Gear", we are perhaps making real progress. If we can produce an environmentally friendly car that people still enjoy driving, that must make success in tackling climate change a real possibility. I hope that we will consider helping firms such as ITM and seeing how they can be encouraged and helped to produce products that will be important for our economy and our export potential for many years ahead, if we can become a world leader in producing them. In its ideas for the production of hydrogen, ITM is looking to link in with offshore wind farms, which will certainly be an important source of energy in the future, although they produce energy simply when the wind blows, which is not always when that energy is needed. ITM is looking at the possibility of turning the energy produced by offshore wind farms into hydrogen, storing it under the North sea and using the pipelines from the North sea as a means of bringing it onshore. It is a concept at this stage; it is an idea, but it is exciting and interesting and, again, something in which we have the potential to become a world leader. I hope that firms that have such ideas will be assisted so that those ideas are implemented in this country as a first. I also intend to have transport Ministers meet with another firm in my constituency called Magtec. It is developing an interesting electromagnetic motor that can be attached to a conventional heavy goods vehicle or bus. The firm believes that it has the technology, and it works; there are buses running around in Denver in the United States with the original form of the technology on them. It says that it can achieve a 40 per cent. fuel saving on an HGV or a bus. It is a practical proposal. The technology is there; it works. The firm just needs to convince some of the bus manufacturers that its product is the one that ought to be used and developed. Magtec has just taken on four more skilled engineers and technicians to help it with this work. It is a small company, but again it is looking to grow, even in the current difficult circumstances. Such companies are growing in precisely the industries that we ought to be encouraging and assisting. I hope that they can have access to some of the measures in the Budget to help them through what is obviously not an easy time for any company. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) referred to rail. I certainly support rail transport, and I hope that, whatever problems we have with future Government finances, we will maintain our commitment to invest in rail, especially where it can lead people to stop using internal air transport and where we can switch from diesel to electrified rail systems. I have a constituency interest in two particular issues. I know that a working party that includes transport Ministers is looking at the potential electrification of the Midland main line. That certainly would be welcomed in Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and many other places. On the line north of Bedford, we hope for an early announcement and a commitment that the scheme will go ahead. In the slightly longer term, we are looking for strategic decisions on the high-speed rail network. I raised that issue with the Transport Secretary in questions a short time ago. I argue strongly that, as well as a line to Birmingham, we can take a line off from Rugby—the old Great Central line—and run it through between Nottingham and Derby up between Sheffield and Rotherham and on to Leeds. There is no reason why we should think simply about one line. A line to Leeds via Nottingham and Derby and Sheffield and another line going up to Manchester seems to provide an entirely sensible system if we then have a proper link through the Woodhead tunnel linking the west of the country with the east. The possibilities for rail are real, and I hope that the Government remain committed to them, because their development would be good for British industry, for the travelling public and for the environment. I welcome the extra money for the Warm Front programme, but tenants who live in social housing are still at a disadvantage because the work permitted under that programme is available to owner-occupiers and private tenants on particular benefits, but not to social housing tenants. It is not just a matter of insulation—often houses in the social housing sector are well insulated—but often a problem with old and antiquated boilers. If social housing tenants had assistance through the Warm Front programme, we could do an awful lot to make their homes more energy efficient and save those tenants money. It is absolutely right that the Government are targeting help on unemployed young people and the long-term unemployed. Again, I go back to the 1980s in Sheffield. We are still suffering today from the problems caused when the breadwinner of families became unemployed in the 1980s, never got back into work and invalidity benefits were seen as a substitute for jobs. As a result, one generation after another has remained unemployed. We have to recognise that long-term unemployment is a major social problem as well as an economic one, and we must ensure that we focus on those people. It is often easy to forget about them. With more people becoming unemployed, those who have been unemployed the longest and who perhaps have the fewest skills are often forgotten about altogether because they are the hardest to deal with. We must not let that happen now. When people lose their jobs, it is also important to ensure that they do not lose their homes as well. The Government have already taken steps to ensure that people who end up on income support get help with their mortgage payments after three months, rather than nine months. That was a good step, as is the home owners mortgage support scheme that was announced this week. That scheme will be important, because it is not usually the whole family that goes on to income support. Instead, one family member might become unemployed or go on to short-time working, but the family as a whole relies on both people working full time to support the mortgage. That is why our support for home owners needs to become more flexible in enabling them to keep their homes. When one member of a family becomes unemployed, the family as a whole does not get income support, and it is going to struggle to pay the mortgage. The home owners mortgage support scheme therefore represents an excellent step forward. In questions earlier this week, I raised the issue of private tenants with the Housing Minister. More people are going to get into difficulty when the owner of a property—sometimes on a buy-to-let mortgage, but sometimes not—defaults on their mortgage, and the private tenants, who have paid their rent and done nothing wrong, suddenly find that their home is at risk. I know that the Government have an agreement to extend the period of notice involved, and I have some sympathy with the mortgage lenders in this regard. When they offer a buy-to-let mortgage, it is clear to them that tenants will be in the property. Unfortunately, however, some home owners with an ordinary mortgage subsequently let their property without telling the lender, which can lead to real difficulties. We have to take that issue on board, and I was pleased that the Housing Minister recognised that that problem still exists and that the Government need to introduce further measures. I also welcome the help for building more homes, for buying up empty houses, including those on sites where private developers have not been able to sell, and for encouraging local authorities to begin building programmes. We must think about the longer-term issues as well, however. The Government have set a target for 40,000 units of social rented housing to be built each year, but that target is unlikely to be hit, even with this extra help, for the simple reason that section 106 agreements are no longer coming to fruition because the private schemes that would have delivered them are not being built. Also, housing associations are in difficulties because most of them rely on a mix of funding for their schemes. They get some money from the social housing grant and some from building houses for sale on the same site as their rental properties, which involves cross-subsidising. As there is now greater uncertainty about whether those houses will be sold, the housing associations cannot get private finance and many of their schemes are simply not happening. There is therefore going to be a real problem hitting the 40,000 target, even with these extra measures. If there is to be any chance of moving forward on building social housing for rent at the moment, the Government must make it absolutely clear that they will provide the money to local authorities that are prepared to provide their land for free in order to make these schemes happen. There is a challenge for local authorities up and down the country to come into partnership with the Government and to get social housing grant, but they then need to make that grant go further by putting their land in for free in order to get homes built in their communities. Local authorities often moan about the shortage of housing, and there is a real shortage up and down the country. That problem becomes more stark when people cannot afford to buy or cannot get a mortgage. More people are therefore going on to local authority waiting lists, and there is a real shortage of rented housing. This is certainly true of my own constituency; I get people contacting me about this problem almost every day. However, local authorities must be prepared to step up to the mark and recognise that this is a priority for them as well as for the Government. I have often said to the Government that we must consider the longer-term issues that will apply when we come out of the recession. The fundamental demand for housing, either for purchase or for rent, has not gone away. One of my real worries is that we shall now go through a period of no training for skilled workers for the building industry. It was only a year ago that we were welcoming people from the Czech Republic, Poland and many other places to help us to sustain our house building and to carry out home improvements through the decent homes programme, because we had a shortage of skilled workers. We could now have three or four years in which fewer homes are built, with people being laid off and drifting out of the industry, and no one being trained. Once demand returns, however, there could be a real problem if we go back to the old housing inflation. Demand will not have gone away, but we will have had a period without adequate supply, in which people have not been trained and others have been lost to the industry. When demand comes back, the resulting shortage of capacity could lead to another sharp upward spike in house prices. How we cope with that and retain people in the industry—we need to retain people in skilled manufacturing jobs as well—is a real challenge. I am a little disappointed that the Budget paid no attention to the need to offer some help for short-time working in various industries, which has happened in many continental European countries, because that is one way in which we might have been able to keep more skilled people in manufacturing and construction. If the Government had assisted with that, we might have been able to retain more skilled workers. That challenge still has to be met. No one likes paying more at petrol or diesel pumps for their fuel—an inevitability in current circumstances. One issue people have raised with me—I do not have an the answer for the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—is that they should be buying diesel cars because they are more fuel-efficient, yet diesel is more expensive, quite a bit more expensive, than petrol in this country. In many countries on the continent, diesel is much cheaper than petrol. Why cannot we offer diesel at the pumps for at least the same price as petrol? Why do we have this price differential, which encourages people to buy less fuel-efficient cars? The Government should have a word with the industry about that with a view to mitigating some of the extra costs. On the beer tax, I know that the Government have to raise money, but there is a difficulty with their proposal. Clearly, we have a problem with binge drinking, which is mainly about crates of cheap lager from the supermarkets getting into the hands of young people, and I am sure that we have all heard complaints from our constituents from time to time about that sort of activity. However, we face a fundamental problem in terms of the demise of the British pub as a community institution, so carrying on regardless putting up the beer duty will have an impact. The problem is not just one for the Government. The other day, I met a group of tenants in my constituency who work for Enterprise Inns; they did not point their fingers at the Government, but said that, in their calculations, Enterprise Inns could make a pound a pint on the beer it sold, so perhaps putting 2p on beer duty was not the real issue. Nevertheless, the Government need to be sensitive about this point. Yes, of course we are against binge drinking; yes, of course we want sensible measures to deal with it; but if that means putting at risk community institutions such as pubs, we need to be very careful indeed. I urge the Government to think again.