COUNCIL HOUSING

Summary

That this House views with alarm the Government's refusal to either fund or allow local authorities to borrow directly to invest in repairing council housing, the Housing Green Paper's aim to transfer 200,000 homes per year over 10 years, the support for PFI, even though it is an expensive way of financing public services, the terms attached to the 'arms-length housing companies' that make them unavailable to all but a handful of authorities and suggest that they will be so 'arms length' as to be effectively privatised, support for 'market forces' that will cause real financial hardship as council rents rise and the amount of money being spent by local authorities to win transfer ballots without equal resources to opponents preventing a fair debate; notes that the Government has recognised the injustice of this but had not yet stopped this tax or returned the money to fund housing repairs; believes that the experience of 'market forces' in housing has caused immense misery and poverty and necessitated that the provision of decent, affordable, secure and accountable housing be an essential component of the comprehensive welfare state and that this policy should be defended today; and resolves to join with council tenants, local authority trade unionists and others to ensure that further privatisation of council housing is halted to allow a proper debate including allowing local authorities to borrow directly and the long-term cost and other consequences of council housing privatisation.

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