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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

My hon. Friend, who chairs that Select Committee, makes an important point. I am not aware of a single voice in the housing industry who believes that investment in housing should have been cut last year. It is fair, however, to point out that, in January 2009, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the Leader of the Opposition, called for a cut of more than £1 billion in my Department's budget, nearly all of which—about £800 million—would have fallen on the housing programme. If the official Opposition's policies had been followed, far from building more houses, as we have done, there would have been fewer houses. It would be interesting to find out whether any hon. Member believes that the country would be stronger today if those thousands of homes had not been started and if the thousands of people employed to build them had been out of work. I cannot see a single Member in the Chamber who thinks that the country would have been better off if we had not invested in those houses, yet the Conservative party's policy was that those houses should not have been built, that people should not have been employed and that apprenticeships should not have been created. All the rolling of eyes in the world cannot get away from the fact that that was, and remains, Conservative party policy. I am pleased that we have created jobs and that we are building homes for families in the future, and that has helped this country to get through the recession. Looking to the future, the need for new affordable housing has only been intensified by the recession, so we will need to ensure—we set out how we will do this in the Budget—that local authorities allocate the land needed to support recovery in house building. That is in stark contrast to the approach of the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman), who wrote to local authorities to urge them to resist plans to allocate land for housing, although that has been widely condemned by everyone associated with housing and the construction industry. Withdrawing the fiscal stimulus early, as the Conservatives propose, would cut house building by perhaps half, because 40 to 45 per cent. of all recent new-starts have depended on public investment. We need to take further measures to boost the housing market. We are introducing a two-year stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers for homes costing up to £250,000, which will help nine out of 10 first-time buyers. However, to pay for that, we will introduce an additional 5 per cent. stamp duty rate for homes costing more than £1 million—that is a fair approach. By reforming the council house finance system, we will let councils fund and run their own local housing stock. Some 10 per cent. extra will be released for maintenance so that homes do not fall below the decent homes standard again, and capacity will be provided to build 10,000 new council homes a year by 2014-15. The Government believe that cutting the deficit does not mean damaging the front-line services on which people rely. The Budget continued our commitment to make £11 billion of savings a year by 2012-13 through greater efficiency and streamlining government, which includes £8 billion of savings set out in the operational efficiency programme. Local government can deliver savings of £2.1 billion towards that total in areas including greater collaborative procurement, increased back-office efficiency and the greater use of shared services. Up to £100 million can be saved by reducing energy usage in local authorities. My Department will identify savings of £200 million to be delivered in 2012-13, including through operational efficiency, work to reform our arm's length bodies, and a new approach to the regional tier of government. Our public services must be as efficient, responsive and citizen-focused as possible. Through Total Place we are establishing the most radical changes in the delivery of public services for many years. We have high expectations of our public services. We want higher quality services that are more tailored to individual needs but more cost-effective, but not the bleak vision of the Conservative party's proposals for Ryanair councils under which people pay once in council tax and again in top-up charges for a decent service.