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Building Britain's Future

Absolutely. As I have said, where there are good business cases, the banks should do that. I could see that one or two of the businesses that approached me were in dodgy circumstances, but most of them were absolutely viable companies that had had their normal operating arrangements of three, four or five years or longer, clawed back and tightened up, which prevented them from operating properly and even endangered jobs in what would otherwise be successful businesses. There is no excuse for that. The banks must have enough pressure exerted on them to do the job they are there for, and which the taxpayer is now funding in almost all cases. Another example, which we touched on in the question session, is the enterprise finance guarantee scheme. The Minister gave examples of how many companies across the east midlands have successfully accessed the scheme, but I am still not sure about the difference between successfully accessing the scheme and getting the money. The company in Chesterfield that I referred to is a successful one. The only reason it has a problem is that in January a company it had done some work for went into receivership, owing it £140,000. In February, it applied for an enterprise finance guarantee loan and the bank said it was like chasing a rainbow. Eventually, after I intervened a few months later, the bank said, ““Okay, we will have it all done for June””. I had to intervene again at the end of August and in September, and the bank said that it would have the loan ready for October. It is eight or nine months since the scheme began and that company still has not received a penny. It is a vibrant, successful company, with full order books through to December and beyond. I can see no reason why it is not being allowed access to the loan. Other businesses in Chesterfield have tried to access enterprise finance guarantee loans and have failed, meeting a wall of obstruction from the various banks. The regional Minister and central Government should go back to the banks to look at whether the scheme works. There was a major survey and a national report in the press at the end of July or the start of August that said that this was happening not just in Chesterfield. It had been identified across the whole country that, eight or nine months in, the enterprise finance guarantee loan system was off to a lame start. It is outrageous that there is the danger of a successful business in Chesterfield going under simply because it cannot access a Government loan scheme, even though it meets all the criteria perfectly. The banks must look to their laurels, and the Government, who are bankrolling them, must twist some arms. What else can we do to get out of the recession and into an upturn, and then maintain it? One thing we can do is judicious capital pump-priming. I was in New York earlier this year with a cross-party group of MPs looking at how the Americans are responding to the financial crisis. We met representatives from the Federal Reserve Bank and NASDAQ, and we went up Wall street. We went to see what some of the areas on the New Jersey shoreline were doing to tackle the recession. One of the points that struck me was that President Obama was talking about turning crisis into opportunity. He was asking all the equivalents of our local authorities across the US if they had shovel-ready projects into which the Government could direct money. He was talking about projects that could put people to work immediately in the first part of the year. That would help to bring the country out of recession and leave a lasting investment from which people could benefit. There seems to be no such initiative from this Government. We have heard a lot of praise for the announcement today of the construction of 2,000 new council houses at the end of this year and early next year. That is 50 per cent. more than this Government have managed in the previous 12 years. Even Margaret Thatcher who hated council houses built 100,000 in her first 10 years of office, and she was running the programme then. In 12 years, this Government have managed just over 4,000 across the whole of the UK, and they are making a huge fuss over announcing 2,000 today. That is a 50 per cent. increase on a pathetically low level. Let us get real about the state of social housing in this country. In 1997, the Government and the then Chancellor put all their eggs in one basket and said that councils were incapable of being involved in such an area—even though they had managed very successfully for the past 80 years—and that money would be directed to registered social landlords such as housing associations. Have they delivered on that? In the past 12 years, they have managed an average of 22,000 units of social housing a year. The Government’s own Barker report said that a minimum of 46,000 to 50,000 was needed simply to stand still. The national waiting list for social housing has gone up from 1 million in 1997 to 1.8 million today. The housing industry says that it will probably be 2 million by early next year because of the recession, repossessions and unemployment. Like most hon. Members, I see the human misery that that involves. Chesterfield has about 40 council properties—flats, old folks’ bungalows and houses—that are available every week, and there are 2,500 people or families actively seeking accommodation. The council has already purged the waiting list to get rid of the inactive ones and those who have moved on and so on. There are 2,500 people every week chasing 40 properties. At my surgery every Friday I hear stories of people sofa-surfing with relatives and friends and living rough. Children are sleeping on sofas and floors, which is bad for their education and their development. It is a nightmare. One obvious answer is to let the councils build council houses like they used to. I am not talking about the pathetic 2,000 that we are hearing about today, which averages out at four per UK constituency—and four units is exactly Chesterfield borough council’s share of the 2,000. Such a number will make no difference to a waiting list of 1.8 million and growing. It is not just principled Members of the Labour party and people such as me who have been complaining about this issue over the past few years. The National Housing Federation, hardly a hotbed of left-wing socialism, has been calling all year for the building of council houses to reinvigorate the economy, to get 250,000 unemployed building workers back into work and to end the human misery of the massively increased waiting list that this Government have created.