Ms Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford)

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a maiden speech in a debate on the inequality of opportunity in Britain. I do so not as one of the Celtic minorities in the House, although I am so qualified, but rather as an elected representative of Lewisham, Deptford—a constituency clearly located in the prosperous south-east, and a mere three miles from the Palace of Westminster. That constituency was most ably served by my very distinguished predecessor, the late right hon. John Silkin. I know that hon. Members will share my deep regret that premature death has prevented him from serving in some new capacity in his planned retirement from the House.

It is almost 24 years since John Silkin made his maiden speech on the subject of the Rent Act 1957 and property profiteering. He pointed out then that the aims of the Act to bring more properties into letting had signally failed, producing instead a property market rife with speculation, extortion and profiteering. Such is the continuing pressure of housing need in Deptford today that I know that he would have had no confidence whatever in the new free market policies for housing outlined in the Queen's speech.

The Prime Minister referred last week to her Government's success in bringing independence and power to the people. I regret to say that that has not been the experience of the people of Lewisham, Deptford. Many of my constituents have suffered the very worst consequences of a divided Britain. Half our manufacturing industry has disappeared since 1981; one person in five is unemployed, and, among those in work, wages are well below the average for the south-east. Yet there is no lack of pride, spirit, determination or endeavour among the people of Deptford. We may live in the deprived inner city, but we still have a sense of community. We want the best for our community in housing, employment and education, and we want it for all the community.

In the Prime Minister's speech last Thursday, we were promised new freedoms and responsibilities in housing, education and local government finance. On behalf of the people of Lewisham, Deptford, I have to ask how those freedoms will be gained and those responsibilities exercised by the poorer members of our society. Or are they lesser beings in the new order? In Lewisham borough as a whole, 22 per cent. of the population live, or rather subsist, on supplementary benefit. The combined waiting and transfer list for council housing alone numbers close on 25,000, and hundreds are literally homeless. Yet no one, in my experience, is seeking dependence. People want the dignity and self-reliance of a job, but there are on average 35 unemployed people for every registered vacancy.

People want improved council housing and better education, and they are willing to pay for it. Indeed, they are paying—paying for collective provision, and repeatedly returning Labour councillors to office. But we are told that a change of tenure is the answer to housing problems in the inner city. Frankly, I find that notion incredible. What alternative landlord is going to provide for the needs of the tens of thousands queuing for homes in Lewisham? What alternative landlord is going to be financially viable—even profitable—in providing housing for the average family, or the pensioner in the inner city? Or could it be that the new landlords will be supplied with the public money denied to elected local authorities? My local council has repeatedly put forward exemplary plans both for its own programmes of house building and environmental improvements, and for employment initiatives in partnership with Government. On the latter, it has even been congratulated by the Department of the Environment on the range and content of the projects submitted.

There is no lack of initiative by Labour councillors in the inner city. There is, however, a dire lack of finance. A Government injection of a couple of million pounds under special programmes goes no way to offset the estimated £137 million lost to Lewisham council in central Government support between 1980 and 1986.

I can promise that the people of Lewisham, Deptford will not readily accept cosmetic solutions to their real and pressing inner-city problems. We shall also be looking carefully at the Government's promise to introduce a Bill to reinforce the system of firm but fair immigration control. In more than a quarter of the households in my constituency, the head of the household was born in the New Commonwealth or Pakistan. Those people are not seeking open-ended immigration; far from it. But they do seek, and I seek on their behalf, a just law which does not split families, and which gives our black citizens the freedom to receive visitors from abroad on equal terms with everyone else.

Freedom has been a recurring theme of speeches in the past few days. It is a much-vaunted concept, but one around which the House, like Britain, remains divided. As Socialists, we on this side of the House seek freedom tempered with justice, acknowledging that freedom for the strong all too often means exploitation of the weak. Our attempts to secure greater equality are frequently denounced, as they were today by the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville), as barriers to that greater freedom. However, Tawney said: We must ask the vital question, 'Freedom for whom?' For there is no such thing as freedom in the abstract, divorced from the realities of a particular time and place. I am only too aware of the realities of my inner-city constituency and of the needs of its people. I come here to campaign for those people and to resist every measure that shifts resources from the weak to the strong and from the have-nots to the haves.

See this speech in context