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Identifying Growth Sectors in the South East Economy

My hon. Friend makes a telling and cogent point, and I agree with him. The credit insurance scheme was announced in the 2009 Budget on 22 April, implemented on 1 May, originally backdated to 1 April and then, on 9 June, backdated to 1 October 2008. Some £5 billion was allocated to that scheme. Then, on 26 July, a survey of 100 member firms by the Construction Products Association found that only one had taken advantage of that scheme, which it found ““very expensive with very limited cover.”” Little wonder that the Financial Times on 21 August described the take-up of the scheme as ““paltry””. Those are some of the schemes on which the Government have pinned their hopes to alleviate the effects of the recession and to encourage a revival of growth. They are clearly a very long way from achieving their desired outcome. Further light was shed on the failure of the Government’s policies in the answers we heard to some of today’s questions. We heard about housing, which is of particular concern in the south-east, and the growing shortage of social housing is perhaps the most acute manifestation of that concern. Waiting lists have almost doubled since 1997, which is hardly a surprising development given the fact, as I pointed out earlier, that fewer units of social housing were being built after 1997 than before. Neither is it surprising that, in a belated response to the crisis, the Government launched with their usual fanfare another grandiose scheme—a £1.5 billion housing programme—but in order to finance it, they have had to take nearly £590 million from existing housing and regeneration budgets, which will have a particular impact on the south-east.