Monthly Report for October 2010

Below is a summary of my work in Parliament and in Southampton for the month of October 2010. Click here to read previous reports.

If you'd like to know more about any of the work I've been doing, or if you think there is another issue you think I should be acting on, you can always contact my office.

Sustainability test for Portswood Sainsburys

Sainsburys have put in a new planning application for their proposed store in Portswood. Sainsburys was originally granted permission to build a 40000 square feet store along with a health centre and 126 homes. They are now proposing instead to build a 50000 square feet store with no health centre and 56 homes, as well as a petrol station opposite the store on St Denys Road. I have been in touch with both Sainsburys and the PCT to see if there is any way the health centre could be salvaged as part of the building plans- however this looks unlikely now due to some of the bigger doctors’ practices effectively withdrawing their support for the proposal.

I am meeting with Sainsburys about their revised proposals later this week, where I be raising a number of concerns residents have already raised with me about the lack of consultation over the new store plans. In general, I believe Sainsburys can be a positive addition to Portswood, but it will be a substantial missed opportunity if Sainsburys are effectively allowed to renege on the ‘social’ element of the site, which was critical in them gaining planning permission for a store in the first place.

Erskine Court- sheltered accomodation under threat

I will be meeting residents of Erskine Court this weekend to discuss with them the Council’s plans to close their block and sell it off to developers. It is perhaps worth briefly addressing the Council’s argument for closing the block. The Council originally claimed that Erskine Court would fail Decent Homes standards. However, they have since confirmed to my office that this is not the case. They now say that they have taken an internal view that shared bathing facilities for any sheltered accommodation are ‘un-decent’ and that they do not want to spend the money necessary to upgrade the flats.

It may have been the case that if the Council gave residents in Erskine Court the option of moving out, rather than telling them they would have to do so, that they could have slowly moved residents to other sheltered accommodation with their consent and closed the block in a few years' time. The fact that they have not proceeded in this way has created some in my view completely avoidable bad feeling between the Council and residents who feel they are being presented with a fait a compli. As the Council has not adopted such an approach I am backing the position taken by Erskine Court residents, and that of the local Labour Councillors, that the Court should not be closed without the consent of the people who live there.

Uncovering the truth about new housing "incentives"

The Coalition has scrapped local house-building targets, and replaced them with ‘housing incentives’ which theoretically create market incentives for local authorities to build new homes. However, because there is no new money available for these incentives, they will instead be funded via the government taking money out of the Housing Revenue Support Grant, paid to all local authorities to help maintain their social housing stock.

I have been doing some research with the Shadow Communities Team to answer the question- what happens to authorities like Southampton we they have a lot of social housing, but relatively little space to build new homes?

The answer, as it turns out, is that such authorities are set to lose massively under the new scheme. Southampton is likely to lose over £2 million from its housing funding over six years because of these housing incentives. In order to not lose this funding, we would have to build 1103 homes every year- almost 100 more than were built last year, which was in itself more than had been built at any time for almost a decade.

The hypocrisy of the Conservative Council in supporting this scheme, considering their previous (incorrect) allegations that the Labour Government was redirecting housing funding to ‘the north’ is quite breathtaking. This is a very real example of the government redistributing housing funds away from Southampton- not to the north, but to wealthier towns with little social housing and lots of space to build new homes. The Council must, I believe, stand by its word and oppose this ideological and unnecessary redistribution of funds away from the tenants who need it most.

Student fees

labour students As readers may know, the Browne Review on future funding for Higher Education was published last week. The most eye-catching measures were obviously the proposal for effectively unlimited fees (although in reality they are likely to be capped at around £6000). However, in order to properly understand the review, it is worth noting a few more of its elements that have so far received less attention:

The review is predicated on a two-thirds cut in the government’s teaching grant to universities. Higher fees, in this context, do not provide additional funding for universities, but rather merely replace the funding cut by the Coalition government. It should also be noted that Browne was not asked to produce a funding model based on a two-thirds cut in the teaching grant by the last government.
Cuts in the teaching grant are likely to be split unevenly between universities. There are very real concerns that institutions like Southampton Solent which rely on teaching for most of their revenue could go bust if this cut goes ahead.
Browne does not address how wealthy graduates choosing to pay off their student loans more quickly will impact on the ‘progressive’ nature of his proposals. However the likely impact is that higher fees will likely result in graduates in the middle income brackets paying more (when you factor in interest payments) than the wealthiest who can pay off their debts more quickly.
Browne’s dismissal of a graduate tax appears largely based on the fact that under such a system, the debt incurred appears on the government’s debit sheets, rather than ‘off the books’ via the student loans company.

I do not believe Browne unedited offers a fair or sustainable path for higher education funding. Whilst I and most of the Labour party do not reject the principle of a student contribution, I will be arguing for an alternative based around the values of a genuinely progressive contribution, one that ensures fair access to all students, and one that has as its primary focus providing high quality training and education to all students that will be the fundamental requirement of a competitive 21st century economy.

The Comprehensive Spending Review

My office has produced a separate document going through more of the detail of the CSR. The Labour response to the cuts announced yesterday focuses on a) the risk they pose to the economy, and b) the unfairness of who the Coalition has targeted to bare most of the burden.

The economic critique:

Independent projections show one million jobs will be lost as a result of these cuts- half in the public sector, and half in the private sector because of reduced demand.
The Office of Budget Responsibility has also revised down projections of economic growth from 2.6% to 2.3% as a result of cuts already announced in the June budget
The government’s approach is inflexible- lashing themselves to a programme of cuts despite signs of slowdown in other parts of the global economy
Higher unemployment and slower growth will make it harder to cut the deficit in the long-term- not only because of higher unemployment costs, but also in reduced revenue from general taxation

The only sustainable way to cut the deficit is through economic growth. By cutting this fast and this deep- and £40 billion beyond what most independent experts say is necessary to secure the UK’s credit rating- the CSR risks the entire economic recovery.

The fairness critique:

Children will be paying more to get the deficit down than the banks. The cuts to Child Befnefit amount to £2.5 billion in 2014/15- more than the £2.4 bn that the government wants to raise from the bank levy. And that's wuthout looking at the cuts to Child Tax Credits.
According to the Trasury's own figures the poorest 10% in society will pay more to reduce the deficit than 80% of the rest of the population.
House of Commons research shows that these measures will hit women harder than men.
The Institute of Fscal Studies has said the Spending review is 'clearly not progressive on the Treasury's analysis."

Whilst we will not be campaigning against every cut, it is clear the Tories are cutting too deep and too fast, and we will oppose their cuts when they fail the fairness test and threaten economic growth.

Parliamentary debates & questions

renewable heat Over the last month I have been pressing the government on their lack of plans to tackle the 47% of the UK’s climate changing emissions produced through heating homes and water. This is a massive waste of energy and money but has so far received little attention. I am working with Friends of the Earth and a cross-party group of MPs to put pressure on the government not to drop the Renewable Heat Incentive, which would pay people and businesses for the heat they generate from clean green sources such as solar thermal panels and ground source heat pumps.

Last week I organised a Westminster Hall debate on the future of a £60 million fund for British ports. The fund was allocated by the last government to enable our ports to build and service a new generation of offshore windfarms. Industry leaders agree that if ports do not have the necessary infrastructure to build and service new windfarms, it will be impossible to secure the private investment necessary to build the windfarms themselves. The minister who responded to my debate regrettably dodged the question of whether or not the Coalition government would protect the fund, but the question is likely to be answered in the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Last month I tabled a question asking the government what consultation it had done on abolishing the requirement for landlords to apply for planning permission before converting a family home into an HMO. The government has now confirmed that the majority of responses were in favour of keeping this power, but that they went ahead and abolished it anyway.

This month I have also asked questions on microgeneration devices being excluded from the government’s ‘green deal’ package, and on the floor pricing of carbon.