Balls pledges new cash for affordable homes
The shadow chancellor Ed Balls tells the Labour Party conference he has a “clear and costed programme” to kick start the economy and get the country back to work.
Speaking on the first full day of Labour’s conference in Manchester, Mr Balls promised that a Labour government would build 100,000 affordable homes.
The shadow chancellor said he would use the windfall from selling off the 4G mobile spectrum, to support faster mobile services: expected to pull in as much as £4bn. Mr Balls said the proceeds could be spent on creating 150,000 jobs in the construction industry, and up to 500,000 jobs in related sectors.
Some of the cash would also be used to fund a two-year stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers with properties worth £250,000 or less, describing it as a “clear and costed plan”.
Mr Balls said his plan was an attempt “to cut through the dither and rhetoric and actually do something”.
In difficult times, we urgently need to put something back into the economy. Ed Balls MP, shadow chancellor
In 2000 Gordon Brown raised £22.5bn through the sale of the 3G spectrum, although the proceeds were purely used to tackle the country’s debts. This time, though, Mr Balls said that boosting growth should come first. “In difficult times, we urgently need to put something back into the economy.”
But he said he had to be upfront with the British people about what it was possible to achieve: “Hard times will last longer than all of us hoped”, he said. “And we cannot promise to put everything right straight away.”
However Mr Balls also revealed that he and Ed Miliband had asked Sir John Armitt, who chaired the Olympic Delivery Authority, to look into ways of improving long term infrastrucure planning, delivery and finance.
Sir John said Britain did not do a good enough job of planning ahead, and needed to raise its game significantly. He said he was looking forward to engaging with business, political and environmental leaders across the spectrum, to build a consensus on projects which were essential for Britain’s future needs.
Spirit of 1945
In an appeal to activits, Mr Balls evoked the spirit of 1945 to show how a previous Labour government had grappled with far greater challenges to lead the country to better times. Labour’s task today, he said, was to recapture the values and national purpose of those days.
David Orr, from the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations across the country, welcomed the promise to build 100,000 new homes. He said it would create jobs and help revive the economy with a speed few other industries could match.
“Housing drives growth quickly, but almost all of its benefits are retained within local economies”, he said. “Local jobs are created, local suppliers used and local people housed.” And he claimed every pound spent on construction would create three pounds in the wider economy.
However Mr Balls is still facing some hostility from union leaders angry at his continued support for a public sector pay freeze. Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has warned that Labour could lose the next election if it does not manage to connect with ordinary workers.
A union-backed motion at the conference later today will call on the party to condemn the policy, claiming it would fuel economic stagnation. But the Labour leader Ed Miliband promised that Mr Balls would be “iron” in his opposition to irresponsible spending pledges.
“We are not going to spend money that we don’t have, of course we’re not”, he said. But he insisted that Labour’s policies would focus on issues like pensions, banking reform and spending priorities, to make sure that ordinary people got a fairer deal.
