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Opportunities for the Next Generation

I shall address first some of the points that the Minister made, yet again, at the outset of the debate, about the inter-generational issue. What he said is a complete red herring. His argument is that the problems that young people face today were caused by the previous generation stealing their children's future. I declare an interest, as one of the baby boom generation—the younger end of it. I accept that in many ways we are a fortunate generation. We are fortunate because we are the children of the welfare state. We are the ones who benefited from the better education, the better housing and the better health. We were the children raised on the cod liver oil and that peculiar-tasting orange juice. I do not know how many Members present remember that, but it did us a great deal of good. Government Members who are so concerned about social mobility should consider that the reason why social mobility rose for the generation who entered adulthood in the 1970s was precisely because they had those opportunities. If social mobility is held to have stalled in subsequent years, we must look at what was happening when the young people of the first decade of this century were growing up—the 1980s and early 1990s. Social mobility is a long-term matter. This is not about the selfishness of a generation, but about the way that we structure society. If we are to structure society and the economy for future generations, we must put in place the sorts of measures that benefited us. Housing is extremely important. In Edinburgh, and I suspect in many other parts of the country, the problem is not planning, despite the planning controversy that seems to have engulfed those on the Government Benches. The problem is about money to fund affordable housing. We have outstanding planning consents for buildings that are not being built. We have regeneration schemes that have stalled after demolition has been carried out, because we cannot afford to build. We have a plan for regenerating our entire docklands area. The development framework was developed five years ago, before the recession, for 18,000 homes, but it has stalled. How do we unlock that? We could do it by making the investment that would allow affordable homes to be built. That would help to resolve the problem of young people being unable to afford housing. It would also create jobs in the private sector, and apprenticeships, which other Members have spoken about. That is very important, and we need to put it in place. That is where the investment should be going. We need to think about that very seriously, because if we do it, there will be a future for our children.