Labour must protect poor: Meacher

AN Oldham MP has attacked a Government minister for celebrating the fact that people can become rich in Britain.

Michael Meacher told the Commons how he was saddened by the comments and said the Labour Party was there to protect the poorest in society and not to widen the gap between rich and poor.

Earlier this year, John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, said the UK should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously successful in this country.

In a speech he argued that more millionaires are needed, calling the freedom to get rich a good thing.

Mr Meacher told MPs: “I was saddened by a current minister commenting that we should celebrate people being very wealthy.

“I certainly do not object if people become wealthy by honest work, but the Labour party did not come into existence, and it is not its rationale, to celebrate the very wealthy.

“It is there to protect the poorest, to give them more opportunity and to reduce the divide between rich and poor.”

Speaking in a debate on the draft legislative programme, the Oldham West MP reiterated his call for more social and affordable homes to be built.

On average there are 6,000 people in need of a council house in each parliamentary constituency in the country, with 12,000 in Oldham.

There are 80,000 people registered homeless nationwide, Mr Meacher added.

He said: “One way of preventing that huge pool of housing need from ballooning even further — this is a radical proposal, but I would like it to be considered seriously — would be to allow houses at risk of repossession to be bought by public authorities and their owners converted to tenants until such time as they are able to buy again.

“I should like that possibility, and the economics that might bring it about, to be considered very seriously.”

Mr Meacher criticised the Conservatives for their obsession with home ownership but stressed it was not an option for a quarter of the population who could not afford to buy their own home.