DCH has produced a new Briefing
'Pressure swings pendulum back to council housing'
that sums up latest developments from Labour's internal policy discussions and around the 'Review of Council Housing Finance'
(see useful presentation from regional seminars (July/Aug).
Help inform the debate by getting tenants and trade union organisations to bulk order copies of the new DCH eight page newspaper (£20 per 100 / £120 per 1000 copies).
The briefing and newspaper opens up the debate on proposals for breaking up the national Housing Revenue Account and plans to set up new 'Local Housing Company' public/private partnerships.
Both formulas potentially avoid government having to concede key 'Fourth Option' demands, presumably in the hope that they will diffuse and weaken the campaign ahead of debates at the Labour Party conference
and recommendations from the 'Review of Council Housing Finance'.
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Dozens of Constituency Labour Parties, as well as major unions, submitted amendments to Labour's National Policy Forum (July 25/26) supporting the campaign's demands.
In negotations the Minister made a significant concession.
('Major breakthrough' on fourth option').
Local authorities will now be allowed to bid directly for ‘Social Housing Grant’ to build ‘council housing’
(directly managed with ‘secure’ council tenancies). A new generation of first class council housing can now be built - and without the
risks involved with councils entering into public/private partnerships with Local Housing Companies and other Special Purpose Vehicles.
On ‘Decent Homes’ – particularly important for tenants in authorities
being bullied to accept privatisation and those who have already rejected privatisation options
but being denied improvements – there was a clear commitment to meet the standard but it was left ambiguous how this might be achieved.
Commitment to additional resources for authorities facing a funding gap is now essential.
Alongside the HRA Review (see below) these developoments reinforce the case for a complete moratorium on stock options and further privatisation until the new finance regime is agreed.
Read final wording of amendment
and separate letter of clarification.
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Tenants met with MPs at the House of Commons on 14 July to discuss our first
submission
to the government's 'Review of Council Housing Finance'.
Get your organisation to support
this paper or submit your own (hrareview@communities.gsi.gov.uk).
The meeting welcomed the LGA endorsing our key demands (see right), and agreed to hold a national conference and a
lobby of Parliament.
Join DCH to complain at government's
failure to involve tenants in the review (see
Tenant voice must be heard,
Tenants must not be sidelined,
Getting involved in the HRA review,
Channels are open for tenants to use
). Ask your council to distribute the DCH submission and 'Dear Gordon 2' pamphlet to tenants reps to
ensure they are informed.
Background: In December 2007 Housing Minister Yvette Cooper announced a
review
(now called 'Review of Council Housing Finance')
with the commitment "to ensure that we have a sustainable, long term system for financing council housing" and
"consider evidence about the need to spend on management, maintenance and repairs".
Challenge any councils doing 'stock option' or stock transfer consultations and demand a moratorium until the review reports.
Insist councils model the Minister's commitment to show tenants the alternative to privatisation.
See impact of fully funding allowances
to make council housing sustainable
Read more>>
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Organise a local protest to demand government fund improvements to all existing council housing, start building first class council homes to address housing need and commit to making council housing sustainble by stopping the robbery!
Invite tenants, trade unionists, councillors and people on the housing waiting list. Contact DCH for material and 'Fourth Option' hands.
Ask Labour Party members and affiliated unions to submit
amendments
from DCH to the Labour Party 'Partnership in Power' policy consultation.
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Tenants, trade unionists, councillors and council officers came to Parliament on January 22 and more than 20 delegations gave oral evidence to
the House of Commons Council Housing group to support amendments to the
Housing and Regeneration Bill.
Read more>>
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On Jan 16 Austin Mitchell and Alan Walter met Iain Wright, the junior Housing Minister overseeing the Bill. Discussions covered the campaign's main
concerns.
MPs Austin Mitchell, Brian Iddon, Paul Holmes and David Howarth with Alan Walter
and Eileen Short from DCH previously met Housing Minister Yvette Cooper (Oct 18) and discussed the Housing Green Paper, building new council homes,
meeting Decent Homes and the government's response to Hills and Cave.
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17 Constituency Parties submitted motions supporting the 'Fourth Option' that finally got
onto the agenda.
Council housing dominated the housing debate forcing movement in the right direction from Housing Minister
Yvette Cooper
- but not yet nearly enough (DCH responds to Labour's housing debate).
Three consecutive conferences have backed the 'Fourth Option' demands. There's plenty of 'warm words' but
we're still waiting for specific commitments. As Austin Mitchell MP put it "We haven't fought this long and hard and come this far to be fobbed off now."
Read more>>
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TUC delegates unanimously backed the 'Fourth Option' in a high profile debate on the first morning. Britain's two
biggest unions (UNITE and UNISON) both submitted
motions moved
by their respective general secretaries.
UNISON general secretary,
Dave Prentis argued "What is so wrong with councils renewing their housing stock... respecting tenants' choice?"
and said earlier "Investment to improve existing council housing and estates and to start building new first class council housing,
the clarion call of the "Fourth option" backed by Labour conference but still unimplemented, is now mission critical."
UNITE's Derek Simpson
told Congress "The housing crisis is a problem of affordability and supply. Unless we solve that problem it will be a major downer
for the labour movement...I'm pleased that council housing is back as a term in the vocabulary of Labour - it hasn't been for too
long. That is down to your efforts."
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DCH has produced an
'Interim Response' and
additional response on Local Housing Companies (15 Oct)
to the government's
Housing Green Paper
welcoming this opportunity to press the case for council housing
(see covering letter,
Compass article
and Press Archive).
Get your organisation to formally respond to the DCLG consultation endorsing DCH's
five demands.
As Jack Dromey said at the DCH conference "the devil will be in the detail".
The Green Paper directly addresses the key changes to housing finance we've all been demanding. But the solutions steer local authorities into gifting/selling council land to public/private partnerships.
The ratio of new council homes to private homes is unclear and whether they will be 'secure' tenancies charging lower council rents and directly managed by an accountable elected council.
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More than 200 tenants, trade unionists, councillors, MPs, housing professionals and academics took part in the DCH National Conference at the TUC in central London on July 12 2007
(on-line report
or print document).
The agenda combined leading national speakers with
discussions around a
policy statement and
workshop papers.
The event sparked debates on
BBC TV, local radio, press articles
and Guardian letter providing
a high profile for the campaign's five demands.
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Gordon Brown told the UNITE (Amicus) conference
"I cannot promise to implement the fourth option on council housing today
[a demand from the Defend Council Housing group for the last six years] but what I will tell you is that councils will be allowed to build homes again." (Guardian Unlimited, 18 June)
"Mr Brown has an 'open mind' about the fourth option for council housing,
as an alternative to transfer, arm's-length management and the private finance initiative, his spokesperson said this week."
Gordon Brown also told the GMB conference 'we will give help to councils by new means through which they can build houses as well'.
And all six Labour Party Deputy Leadership candidates supported the 'Fourth Option' to enable councils to improve homes direct as an alternative to transfer, PFI and ALMOs
(Give ’em the homes millions, says Brown’s deputy (whoever that turns out to be).
Speaking at a DCH fringe meeting Nick Brown MP, a close ally of the next Prime Minister, told delegates 'Defend Council Housing has been one of the most persistent and courageous Labour movement campaigns that are currently underway and I think their time has come.'
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Camden tenants reps voted overwhelmingly against the council's latest proposals for partial transfers, demolition and sale of homes and land. A packed meeting demanded that the council actively campaign
by sponsoring a London wide conference to lobby for the 'Fourth Option' and a cross party delegation with tenants reps to meet Ministers.
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Hills launched his
Ends & Means
report with Ruth Kelly at the LSE on Feb 20. Hills said people would be disappointed if they expected him to attack a secure tenancy (although the report is more ambiguous). He
applauded the role of public housing in providing decent, affordable and secure housing in the past and recognised the need for the future.
He diplomatically said it wasn't up to him to decide on 'first, second, third or fourth options'.
Ruth Kelly seized the opportunity to raise scrapping council secure life-long tenancies, introducing means testing and bulldozing council blocks to build private housing to create more mixed communities.
These proposals have met with outrage - read
more >>
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More than 1300 tenants, trade unionists and councillors, from over 90 areas across the UK, took part in the Lobby of Parliament and rally on Feb 8 2006
(web report and
bulletin).
Delegations heard from 32 speakers, exchanged experience and lobbied their MPs.
Councils can no longer tell tenants that government policy is set in stone.
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Key organisations launched a
My rent went to Whitehall position paper
at the LGA conference on July 2 which endorses the key housing finance demands DCH and others have been making.
DCH is concerned that breaking up the national HRA system leaves tenants exposed to changes to interest rate, inflation and other risks and could make it easier to privatise homes
and believe that requiring government to fully fund allowances to local authorities provides a more certain and less risky solution.
We welcome a clear commitment to ring fence resources for council housing and suggest that the mechanism for distributing these
resources is looked at as a seperate issue.
Read more>>
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'Dear Gordon 2' argues Gordon Brown can't keep his promise of 3 million new homes unless he drops the dogma and invests in council housing. The
private sector is in crisis and the Local Government Association predicts council housing waiting lists will rise to 2 million
households (5 million people) by 2010.
Updating
'Dear Gordon'
(2007) the new pamphlet reminds the Prime Minister that tenants, trade unions, councillors and MPs - plus three
consecutive Labour Party conferences - demand the 'Fourth Option' of direct investment in council housing. It includes
amendments
to the Labour Party draft policy document and urges Labour Party members and affiliated unions to submit them.
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(The Guardian, 1st April 2008) 'Gordon Brown suffered one of the
biggest backbench revolts
since becoming prime minister last night as 28 Labour rebels backed an amendment to a housing bill calling for more resources for council house building and repair...'.
Read the transcript of the debate in Parliament;
see how MPs voted on amendments
NC1 (fair and balanced ballots) and
NC8 (HRA funding).
See Third Reading Briefing,
campaign report from the Council Housing group of MPs and
More >>
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A new government report looking at councils opting out of the national Housing Revenue Account (HRA) has identified that
"anticipated levels of future subsidy… are not sufficient to maintain a sustainable level of housing services within the HRA subsidy system."
(Self-financing of council housing services: Summary of findings of a modelling exercise, CLG, March 2008)
"We are talking about the major repairs allowance across the country being
40 per cent short of what most people would estimate is a minimum investment need over 30 years" (Steve Partridge, Housing Quality Network consultant supporting the review group, Inside Housing 14 March 2008).
Read DCH Briefing on CLG report conclusions.
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New Housing Minister Caroline Flint made her first
headline proposing council tenants apply for jobs as a condition of tenancy.
Part of the agenda is to stigmatise council housing so as to continue their drive to privatisation and counter growing demands for government to modernise existing estates and start building a new generation of council housing
(Council tenants condemn Flint's statement).
Search Press Archive) on 'Means Tetsing'.
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DCH has produced a 98 page
pamphlet
bringing together 31 articles from leading tenant activists, MPs, trade unionists, councillors and academics.
Get your organisation to bulk order (@£2.50 each) printed copies to distribute to tenants reps, councillors and trade unionists in your area.
Download
Acrobat file
or
Word file
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DCH has produced 100,000 copies of a
Welsh newspaper
sponsored by the Wales TUC, UNISON, T&G and GMB and a
Scottish newspaper
to support local campaigns against transfer.
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The House of Commons Council Housing group has produced a 40 page report documenting the evidence they gathered from their inquiry into support for the 'fourth option'.
Help make sure it is widely read by tenants, councillors and trade unionists in your area.
For more information see
website.
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summary
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full report
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Unlike local authorities we can't dip into the Housing Revenue Account and use tenants rents to campaign. DCH relies on affiliation fees, donations and sale of publications
to get the arguments across. Raise support in your tenants association, union branch, Trades Council and political party.
Download details.
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