Exclusive – Jeremy Corbyn on the #KingsSpeech

“Why is it that we always have money to bomb people, but never enough to feed people?”

By Jeremy Corbyn MP

First of all I want to offer my congratulations to all those who were elected. I want to pay special thanks to the people of Islington North. My re-election was a declaration that democracy matters, and I am looking forward to building power in the community, together.

People across the country are demanding real change. I want to talk about four key issues that matter to my constituents – the 2-child-benefits cap, housing, water and ending arms sales to Israel.

2-child-benefits cap

In 2015, the Tories’ passed the Welfare Bill in Parliament. This Bill slashed support for the poorest in our society with a range of policies. One of those policies was the two-child benefits cap.

Those of us in the Labour Party were instructed to abstain. 48 of us disobeyed and voted against it. We said that this policy was cruel and that it would fail to achieve its outcomes. We were, sadly, correct.

More than half of parents who were hit by the policy were already in work; the policy simply pushed them further into poverty.

I have witnessed the damage this policy has caused to parents and children in my own constituency in Islington. Our community is home to many large families – where is the morality in saying that the third, fourth or fifth child is less important than the first or second?

It is estimated that 1.6 million children are affected by the 2-child-benefits cap. Scrapping the 2-child policy would lift 250,000 children out of poverty overnight. If this isn’t a priority, what is?

It is incredibly disappointing to see the Labour government fail in its primary responsibility to life children out of poverty. The idea that we cannot afford to do so is ludicrous. Scrapping the policy would cost £1.3 billion. A 1% tax on those worth over £10 million would raise £10 billion.

There’s nothing fiscally responsible about plunging millions of people into poverty. I have no difficulty in making my position clear: the 2-child-benefits cap should be scrapped immediately.

Frankly, it is a disgrace that more than one in four children grow up in poverty in the sixth largest economy in the world. We have the resources to ensure every child has enough food to eat, a roof over their head, and the opportunity to develop their creative imagination. We just need the political will.

Housing

There was one issue that received hardly any attention at all during the election, despite the fact that it is one of the most pressing crises of our time: the housing crisis.

A quarter of a million people are homeless. In my own constituency, almost 2000 people are homeless or in temporary accommodation on any given night. That includes more than 850 children.

Civilised societies don’t let human beings sleep on the street. I want to pay tribute to the work of so many organisations in my own constituency, like Streets Kitchen, Single Homelessness Project and Shelter from the Storm, who dedicate their lives to supporting others in need.

This appalling situation is a direct result of successive policies that have treated housing as a commodity, not a human right. Starting with Thatcher’s disastrous Right to Buy scheme, successive governments have allowed the decimation of our social housing stock.

Today, as a result, more than one million households are currently on social housing waiting lists. Those who do make the cut have little choice but to accept poor-quality homes that are unsuitable for their family’s needs. 1 in 7 social homes do not meet basic health and safety standards; tenants who raise complaints of leaks, damp or mould are routinely ignored.

It’s all well and good saying they want to see more houses built. But it’s about the kind of houses that are built. We need a huge council-house-building programme that gives local authorities the resources to meet the needs of tenants, not property developers. We will not tackle the housing crisis by empowering the private sector – it is the private sector that has got us into his mess in the first place.

Alongside a council-house-building programme, we need a way of controlling rents. Most young people have no hope of buying their own home, spending an absurd portion of their income on rising rents. The average renter spends around 1/3 of their pay on rent. 1 in 5 private tenants spend more than half of their salary on rent. Plenty of other countries use rent controls, why can’t we?

We will not fix the housing emergency until we treat housing as a human right. Everyone deserves a decent, warm, safe and comfortable place to live – is that really such a radical idea?

Water

It is not just housing that exposes the disaster of privatisation. Take water as well.

Since our water was sold off in 1989 by Margaret Thatcher, bills have increased by 40% in real terms.

What have we got in return? Raw sewage dumps, leaks and floods. Meanwhile, water companies have paid out £72bn to shareholders.

Now, we’re told that water bills will rise, again, to fix crumbling infrastructure and prevent sewage spills.

It is not my constituents’ fault that Thames Water has run the industry into the ground. It is outrageous that they may now have to pay the price for their collapse just to satisfy corporate greed.

We cannot regulate ourselves out of this crisis. Regulation has failed. As the government’s own briefing paper says, “water companies are failing to deliver for their customers and the environment, and the public have, rightly, had enough.” Why, then, are they being asked to bail them out?

It’s not that complicated – take water back into public ownership!

Residents have experienced the disastrous effects of privatisation for too long. Water is a public good – it should be in public hands. 90% of the world runs water in public ownership. Why are we the exception?

This wouldn’t be a return to top-down nationalisation. A regional entity would be run by consumers, workers, local authorities and environmental agencies. This democratic body would be answerable to the public, and the public alone, rather than to the dividends of distant hedge funds.

It’s time to admit privatisation has failed for good. Stop bailing out failing private companies and bring them into permanent public ownership instead. And while you’re at it, do the same for energy, rail and mail!

End arms sales to Israel

Finally, I want to end with the appalling situation in Gaza. 40,000 people have been killed – a number that is likely to have wildly underestimated the number of people buried under the rubble and at risk of death from disease and starvation.

I want to make a very simple point: if our government does not end arms sales to Israel, it will be complicit in war crimes.

I am alarmed by reports that the government may not be dropping its legal challenge to the ICC. Clarity is urgently required – we deserve to know if the government believes in international law.

This government needs to decide how it wants to be remembered in history. Does it want to be remembered as a government that enabled the genocide of the Palestinian people? Or does it want to be remembered as a government that stood up for international law, for peace and for our shared humanity?

The government’s Defence Review is welcome and necessary – I hope the government will look at pathways to peace in all conflicts: in Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and Congo. I hope they will reflect on the vast cost of the Defence Budget, at a time where other departments are hugely strained.

I end by taking us back to my first point: the 2-child cap. Why is it that we always have money to bomb people, but never enough to feed people?

Real security is ensuring everybody has enough resources to survive. Real security is tackling the climate crisis with a Green New Deal. Real security is avoiding environmental destruction and building a world of sustainability. Real security is getting on with your neighbour in a world of peace.

Many of us in this chamber were elected, in part, to represent our constituents’ outrage over the inhumanity in Gaza. We believe that all human beings, all over the world, deserve to live in dignity. We believe a peaceful world is possible, and we are never, ever, going away.

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