HOLMES CONDEMS PRE BUDGET REPORT AS A HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Addressing a Defend Council Housing conference at the University of London today, Paul said:

"This was a huge missed opportunity. The temporary one year reduction in VAT will cost the Government nearly £13 Billion to little effect. A 2.5% VAT reduction will barely be noticed among the sales discounting already taking place as retailers try to keep their stock moving in the recession. Much of what extra IS spent will go on imported goods and be of little direct benefit to the British economy. That's why both France and Germany have ruled out such an ineffective measure"

"Billions of pounds being ploughed into building new Social Housing to rent (through Councils and Housing Associations) would however have had a dramatic and almost immediate effect in two ways."

"First, 'Direct Labour Organisations' -badly run down by Brown's policies - could take up some slack, but most of the work would go straight to the badly hit private construction sector where almost no private house building is taking place anymore. The wages of all those building workers currently unemployed or facing redundancy would then be ploughed straight back into the economy, benefiting everyone."

"Secondly, a wave of new house building of this kind would start to reverse the disaster of Brown's social housing policies. Since 1997 only 4,000 Council Houses have been built in the whole of the UK compared to 400,000 even under Margaret Thatcher. Waiting lists have almost doubled nationally from 1 million to 1.7 million and in places like Chesterfield and Sheffield they have trebled since Labour came to power. That means misery for many families who could never afford to buy in the first place and have been 'sofa surfing' at friends and relatives' houses due to the lack of Council Housing. It means misery too for the OAP's who come to see me desperately needing to move into scarce bungalows, out of houses with stairs they cannot climb and gardens they can no longer maintain."

"There would have been money to spare too to fund a significant increase in labour intensive and energy saving insulation programmes."