"Socialist Housing Policies for a Recovering Britain"

 

Yesterday (Saturday) was pretty much a Labour Housing Group day (LHG is is a socialist society affiliated to the Labour Party "we work within the movement, both nationally and locally, to develop and promote workable socialist housing policies through our members. If you believe another future is possible for our country and housing – become a member and join us in the fight"

We started with a national zoom seminar on "Socialist Housing Policies for a Recovering Britain". I gave a plug in the Q&A with our Labour Shadow Housing Minister, Thangam Debbonaire MP, for our Newham "Airspace" ambitions to build more homes on top of our our low rise Council owned blocks. Which will at the same time tackle climate change by the retrofitting of roofs and walls and also saving leaseholders bills from new roof maintenance. 

Thangam said she would like to visit Newham to find out more which she will be more than welcome. 

The workshops were fascinating and I wished I could have been at all of them.

You can get a taster of what went on at the twitter feed for the seminar here https://twitter.com/LabourHousing

Afterwards was the AGM of the London Branch of the Labour Housing Group were I was elected to its executive committee. There was also a great discussion on London housing issues with James Murray MP and others). 

I will definitely be bringing up at the Executive the prospect of there being a Newham branch of the LHG since housing is such a crucial issue to us.

Zoom call with Thangam Debbonaire MP, Shadow Housing Secretary & Labour LG Housing Leads

This morning I took part in a virtual meeting with the new Shadow Housing Secretary, Thangam Debbonaire MP, chaired by Cllr Darren Rodwell (Leader of Barking & Dagenham Council). The Leader of Labour Local Government, Cllr Nick Forbes, also presented to the meeting.

It was a really useful and informative meeting. We have similar but different housing problems and it was good to hear from Thangam what she is doing to hold the government to account as well as how Labour Councils and opposition Groups across the land are tackling the crisis.

I had sent comments in beforehand and made a number of points, including that we must make it clear to the government that they need to give local authorities the resources to deliver on their Covid-19 promises. In particular, if they want to keep rough sleepers off the streets long term and ensure that families in temporary accommodation have suitable permanent self contained accommodation, then we desperately need the extra money to deliver on this.

It was really good to meet our new Shadow Secretary of State, Thangam, who was on top of things and clearly wanted to work with Labour local government. 

A great start and look forward to future meetings (apart from the fact that such virtual meeting photos make us all appear as if we are on some Crimewatch "Most Wanted" list).