Housing speech at UNISON National Labour Link Forum

John Gray, speaking on behalf of your National Labour Link Committee in favour of motion 11 (similar)  "Why we need to build a new housing consensus for affordable and decent homes for all"
as amended.

"Chair, Forum, In 1945 General election campaign, that took place after the end of the second world war, the wartime Tory Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was shouted down  at a rally in East London by crowds who demanded a mass house building programme.

The failure by the Tories to convince the public that they would build enough homes at an affordable rent was one of the reasons for the shock Labour victory.

For the next 34 years the Tories had learnt their lesson about the importance of housing and there was a national consensus all political parties competed with Labour at every local and national election on who could provide the most homes and the cheapest rents.

Then in 1979 Margaret Thatcher was elected and the Tories began dismantling public housing, destroying the consensus by divide and rule - and denying millions of people their basic human right to a home.

The Tories 38 year strategy of dismantling public housing has been the biggest privatisation in this country’s history.

The Right to Buy was misnamed from the start – it was a Right to a Discount – and 38 years on, we find that huge numbers of the homes that have been sold and not replaced.

Today, there are 1.5 million fewer homes available for a rent, that people on low incomes can afford, than there was 38 years ago - and the population has grown dramatically since.

In this parliament over £100bn will be spent paying housing benefit to private landlords and it won’t produce a single new home.

Forum, like many of you here today, I work in housing and my substantive job is as a housing officer of a large estate in the east end of London with 7 tower blocks.

Let us never forget that this attack on the provision of public housing is the reason why there were so many families with young children, disabled and elderly residents on the 18th floor of a tower block.

The scandal that surrounds the Grenfell House tragedy lies not just in the repeated failure of government to listen to and act on the advice they received but in the Conservative political mantra that all regulations are just "elf & safety" and therefore ‘bad’.

Forum, the general election campaign changed the public debate on housing and other key issues in this country. The tide of public opinion is turning. this motion provides the basis for UNISON to play its role in ending the dismantling of public housing and beginning a new era of providing quality, safe council and housing association homes with good space standards at rents people can actually afford.

Please support this motion.

(see a longer version of motion sent to NDC here  and read Yvonne Green speech proposing the motion here)

UPDATE: with regard to shock 1945 election result see this fascinating article. 

"Middle classes relying on housing benefit"

Quote from the Tory supporting "The Times" (2 October 2014). Not sure that earning £20k per year makes you "middle class" though? Stuff about the waste of money on housing benefit instead of being used to build new homes at decent rents is telling.

"A study by the National Housing Federation shows an increasing number of middle-class households are having to rely on housing benefit to pay their rent. The research shows middle-income households earning between £20,000 and £30,000 a year accounted for two-thirds of all new housing benefit claims in the past six years, whilst the proportion of households seeking benefits despite being in work has doubled to 22% since 2008.

The Times states that in the 1970s, 80% of government housing spending went on building homes, with 20% on housing benefits but now, with the annual housing benefit bill stood at £24bn a year, the proportions are the other way round. (The Times, Page: 2"

How the bedroom tax works....

Search the Internet for "bedroom tax" and you will find mind bogglingly awful stories of families facing eviction and hardship because of it.

Steve Hilditch from Redbrick thinks that the Tory coalition may finally be politically vulnerable over this issue since it will impact all MPs constituencies.

Families whose children have died won't be able to pay the rent since their housing benefit will be restricted. They are deemed to be "under-occupying" (it's too big for them) their properties following the deaths of their children.

The mother whose son has joined the Army and is due to go to Afghanistan was told by Tory MP to "get a lodger".

I hope it does.

UNISON members who work in housing management will be placed in an impossible position. They will be expected to evict tenants on housing benefit whose children have left home even if they have been exemplary residents and have lived there all their lives. Established communities will be shattered.

This and the other "reforms" will also cost Councils and Housing Associations millions of pounds in arrears and extra administration. Money better spent on building new homes and kick starting the economy?

Click on picture to bring up details and decide for yourself who has too many bedrooms.

Affordable, Safe, Adequate, Secure Housing for All

I know following the riots last year in the UK we have nothing to be smug about. Yet I honestly do dread the impact on our society of this Tory led Coalition housing policies. This motion has been passed by my branch and submitted to our UNISON London AGM next year. 

"This Regional Council AGM notes:-

1. that the housing policies of the Tory led Coalition government is leading to the cleansing of ordinary working people from London and other areas of high rents across the Country.

2. This process was started by a local area housing allowance benefit cap which deliberately ignored actual rent levels. While the imposition of a total benefit cap will finish the cleansing.

3. Families and communities will be split as people have to move hundreds of miles across the country to find cheap private sector accommodation. Soon there will be concentrations of poverty and deprivation in suburbs that circle middle class city enclaves as they do in the divisive and polarised “Banlieues” that are a blight and a disgrace upon Paris.

4. This will not just affect the sick and the unemployed but also the working poor who rely on Housing Benefit to top up their poverty wages.

5. Due to the absolute shortage of social housing, rents for everyone in the private sector are becoming more and more unaffordable while overcrowding and insecurity of tenure increases.

6. There are now more UNISON members who live in the private rented sector than in social housing. Many members have grown up children living with them who are unable to afford to leave home due to high housing costs.

7. The underlying reason for this housing crisis is the failure of the market and successive governments to ensure a sufficient supply of low cost public and private housing. Instead of investing in building homes, housing benefit has been squandered on subsiding high rents. Often going into the hands of criminal Rachman landlords.

8. At the same time that we have massive under capacity and unemployment amongst construction and development workers.

This Regional Council calls for

1. A mass housing investment programme. Building new, refurbishing and retro-cladding older homes. Paid for in the short term by increases in progressive taxes and in the long term by reductions in housing benefit and the Keynesian multiplier effect of an increase in the government finances from building workers paying taxes rather than claiming benefits.

2. The compulsory Licensing and regulation of all landlords, social and private - and strict enforcement of minimum environmental, management and repair standards. Rents levels for all regardless of tenure must be fair and reasonable to tenants and landlords.

3. In the meanwhile local housing allowances and benefit caps should reflect the reality of living in high rent areas.

4. Calls on Labour Link to consider advocating such policies on a regional and national level. 

Housing Killer Key Facts

Hat tip to Red Brick website for this table of key facts on the housing crisis facing millions of people.   Well done to the Fed for getting housing as a lead news item. 486,000 extra who work now on housing benefit. An 86% rise in 3 years.

Letting Housing benefit "take the strain" is not an answer to the crisis. Instead of wasting £90 billion on subsidising high rents caused by lack of supply, why not invest even 25% of this money in new build and refurbishment. Increase supply, reduce rents, get people back in work and increasing economic demand. Joined up thinking?

Interview with Asahi Shimbun Correspondent

Last week I was interviewed by Wataru Sawamura (picture left) who is a correspondent for the Japanese newspaper "Asahi Shimbun". This is the 2nd most popular paper in Japan. He had also interviewed previously our Regional Equalities Convenor, Monica Hirst who is a NHS nurse. Wataru explained that he is interested in finding out more about the human cost of austerity in the public sector but also in Japan the public sector was seen as offering secure employment.  Many Japanese who work in the sector were worried about their future and what was happening to such jobs elsewhere.

I tried to explain the impact of housing benefit cuts in London which will result in the "cleansing" of the poor from much of London. Wataru understood this concern and expressed his view that one of the notable things about London is that the poor and the rich lived next door to each other unlike other more polarised capital cities such as Paris.

We also discussed that in the UK many public services such as the care and support of the elderly and the disabled are provided by the  third sector ("not for profit" Housing associations and charities). Yet currently there was a race to the gutter by some providers and commissioners of such services. Decent providers are being undercut by rogues (Rachman Employers) who win contacts to care for the vulnerable by sacking and demoting workers while also slashing their pay and conditions.  

Wataru had not heard of the book "The Spirit Level" and its praise of Japan as being the most equal society in the world with regard to income inequality and the benefits that come from this. I said that in my understanding in Japan unlike the UK if an organisation has genuine economic difficulties then their managers will usually act as leaders and volunteer for pay cuts before asking their staff for sacrifices. In the UK some care and support charities cut the pay of their (already low paid) staff and then go on to pay their senior management team bonuses for reducing such costs.

Wataru accepted that in Japan mangers did take their responsibilities carefully but in recent year’s most new jobs had been on short term agency contracts so many Japanese are very worried about the future direction that their society will take.  

Stop the jobseeker injustice

Well done to the NHF for carrying on with their "Don't mention the housing crisis" campaign post General election.  Also, for annoying Coalition ministers for pointing out the inequities and injustices of their policies.

This screen print from their website encourages you to contact your MP about the latest bit of Condem viciousness towards the vulnerable. 

"The Government is planning to cut support for people who are looking for work.

From 2013, job seekers will see a 10% cut in their housing benefit if it takes them longer than a year to find a job, while claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA).

This proposal is wrong, it will penalise people who simply can’t find work and threatens to increase homelessness or debt among vulnerable people.

A young person hit by this cut will have to live on an average of just £41.65 a week.

Your MP has the power to vote against the change in Parliament, use this template email to ask your MP to stop this injustice from happening.

We've made this easy for you with this template email which we encourage you to personalise. Once you've finished it, just click 'send' and it will be emailed to your MP".

“Building London’s Future” (& defending London’s poor & vulnerable)

The proposed Tory/Lib Dems reforms of housing benefit (HB) “will lead to two things - firstly a dramatic increase in homelessness which will result in a shift in London’s population -equal in size to a typical post war new town and secondly - deepening and abject poverty”.  So said the host, MP for Westminster North, Karen Buck MP, in her introduction to a “crisis” housing meeting on Thursday to launch this report by London Labour Party.

The report details David Cameron’s and his London Mayor, Boris Johnson, attempts to “cleanse” the Tory controlled boroughs in the Capital of their poor and the vulnerable by changing housing benefit to private tenants.

To show the seriousness of the situation there was a pretty high profile panel of speakers.  Labour Party Leader Harriot Harman MP, Shadow Secretary of State Yvette Cooper MP, Leader of LB Hammersmith & Fulham Labour Group Cllr Steve Cowan, Shadow Minister of Housing John Healey MP, GLA member and London Labour Party leader Len Duvall and Shadow Minister of London, Tessa Jowell MP.  This was before an audience of Councillors and housing activists from across London.

Despite working in housing in London I must admit to being rather shocked at the report and its conclusions.  I will try and post in more detail on each speaker and on the rest of the report another time (there was a lot of interesting stuff) but I’ll outline now the key thing about HB changes that should have every single person who gives a damn about London (and elsewhere) jumping up and down.

Housing benefit provides a roof over the heads of millions of people.  If these cuts to HB go ahead it will mean:-

Yvette Cooper MP: “One million families will lose £12 per week...50,000 of the poorest pensioners will lose £11 per week...Working families will also lose £12 per week...Disabled residents will lose £13 per week.  These are averages...A pensioner in a one-bed flat in Hackney will lose £21 per week...150,000 households in London will not have enough benefit to cover the rent...A population the size of Hackney could be forced to move to cheaper accommodation.  This is what you get from the £550 million of cuts to HB already announced.  Remember that the CONDEMS want £2.3 billion cuts in HB”. 

From the “Building London’s Future” report: “People in London will face on average £1,000 a year cut in support”....159,370 private sector tenants on Local Housing Allowance (LHA) will lose an average of £22 a week in the first wave of cuts....80% of LHA recipients in London will lose more than £10 a week...990 families in a 2-bed property in Tower Hamlets will lose on average £27 a week...73 families living a 2-bed property in Camden will lose on average £53 a week.

(as soon as I find a link to the report I will update but you can check this government site here to find out what will happen to your local authority)

Labour Housing Group Conference Fringe: Sunday 26 September

I received this quarterly newsletter form the Labour Housing Group yesterday. The fringe at Party conference will take place at the Friends Meeting House on Sunday evening.  It is just outside the secure zone (so you will not need any conference pass to attend).

By coincidence yesterday I attended an excellent housing briefing by the Labour Party on "Building London's Future".  The information we received about the likely consequences of the CONDEM cuts in housing benefit is frankly pretty scary.  I'll post on this later. 

As part of the response to the CONDEM plans I did at the meeting bring up the idea of a London branch  of the LHG which seemed to be well received.

(not forgetting another key fringe that will be taking place this year!)