Why we need to build a housing consensus for affordable and decent homes for all - Motion 11 #LabLink

Yvonne Green, Regional convenor & Greater London delegate moving motion 11. Why we need to build a housing consensus for affordable and decent homes for all

"Chair, delegates, the housing crisis is getting worse under this Tory government as the number of social housing shrinks year by year.

While rents and house prices outstrip pay rises also year in, year out.

Forum, the reasons for this are clear and not rocket science.

- if you don’t build enough homes for sale and rent,

- if you cut housing benefits and allowances,

- if you privatise and deregulate environmental protection and security of tenure

- then this results in a housing crisis.

How many of you here have grown up children living with you, not through choice but because they simply cannot afford to rent or buy a home of their own.

Or how many of you have to commute long distances to work since you have to live in a cheaper area.

As our leader Jeremy Corbyn recently remarked “The system is rigged, with housing treated as an investment for the few, not housing for the many”. He goes on to say “seven years of conservative failure with house building at the lowest level since the 1920s shows that they will never fix the housing crisis which is holding so many people back”

So Forum what is the solution? I am sure that many of you will be astonished to hear that despite my youthful looks, in my own life time Tory and Labour politicians use to compete on how many homes they would build if they were in power.

Forum, we must work to rebuild this consensus. Labour, thankfully, is committed to building really affordable homes for rent and for sale. We need to elect a future labour government not only in order to enable this but teach the Tories a lesson that this is what will happen to them if they do not recognise and ensure that it is the absolute duty of the state to make sure its citizens are adequately and safely housed.

Finally conference, as a London delegate and London Council worker, I would like to pay tribute not only to the emergency services who did so much at Grenfell but also the front line Kensington & Chelsea Council staff, who contrary to some media reports, have worked their socks off for residents during this terrible time. They are not to blame for the failure and negligence of their political masters.

So Forum, please support this motion and please support affordable, decent and SAFE homes for all. Thank you".