Inner Cities

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 11:47 am on 25 March 1994.

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Photo of Gerald Kaufman Gerald Kaufman Chair, National Heritage Committee 11:47, 25 March 1994

I congratulate the hon. Lady on living for six whole months in the city of Manchester. My constituents have to spend their whole lives there, putting up with the policies of the Government. I do not intend to defend any errors made by Manchester city council. The hon. Lady might know that the severest critic of the council in my constituency is me. I send it hundreds of letters every month on problems relating to my constituency. However, the hon. Lady should know that Manchester city council is hamstrung in helping my constituents because of the policies of the Government, whose little bit of briefing the hon. Lady has just read out.

In 1990–91, the housing investment allocation made by the Government to Manchester was £47,657,000. For the current year, it has been reduced to £25,227,000. That is in current terms, not real terms. We are not able to deal with the problem. In 1980—the final year of the housing investment programme allocation of the Labour Government—913 council houses were completed in Manchester. Last year, we completed six and started none. It is impossible for someone such as my constituent Mike to find somewhere in the public sector to live.

It is also an impossible situation for people suffering overcrowding. Having read out her briefing note, the hon. Lady has scooted out of the Chamber—no doubt to return to her leafy constituency of Buckinghamshire, after her brief acquaintance with Manchester. [Interruption.] I will not have Conservative Members of Parliament for prosperous home county constituencies getting up and reading from a Tory party briefing which has been thrust into their hands, getting it on to the record and then leaving the Chamber, not to intervene in the debate any further. I will not have it, and I will not be jeered at by Conservative Members.