Councillor Pat Callaghan moved the
Composite 8
from Holborn & St Pancras CLP in the conference debate. She said:
"I am Pat Callaghan, Holborn and St Pancras CLP, moving Composite 8.
There are two and a half million council tenants and their families. They want the choice to remain as council tenants and getting improvements to their homes. Ninety-two councils in England have opted to keep their council housing. There are many more where in the coming months tenants will throw out stock transfer, PFI, Arms-Length Management, joining Camden, Birmingham, Stroud, Wrexham, Aberdeen, Sedgefield and others. No one wants privatisation of council housing. They see it as a direct threat to their security."
"What we want is the fourth option, direct investment in council housing with no strings attached."
"There is enough money. The council housing group of MPs produced a
report in May which shows the government is gaining £1.5 billion a year from tenants' rents and another half a billion from right to buy. To persuade tenants, councils are spending large amounts on glossy brochures, DVDs, consultants and hard sell. So don't tell us there isn't money."
"If all the money that belongs to council housing was put back to fund an investment allowance, all our council homes can be repaired and improved, and more than meet the decent homes standard."
"The current arrangements of funding council housing are unfair as John Prescott admitted during last year's debate at conference. I quote: 'Public financing of housing doesn't treat local authorities on a level playing field and I want to see that changed and I promise to do that.'"
"The Audit Commission said in June this year funding for council housing is perverse and is calling for the government to review the council housing subsidy system."
"Decent, affordable, secure and accountable council housing is what tenants want and what councils want to provide. It's the quickest and cheapest way to get new and improved housing where its needed. Government office argues that separating housing strategy and management improves the service. Wrong! As the ODPM Select Committee puts it, there is no evidence to back this claim. It doesn't give power to tenants, tenants on the board bound by company law from representing fellow tenants. The Audit Commission says that councils are misselling this idea to tenants and these landlords are totally unaccountable."
"Council rents are lower than housing associations by an average of 20 per cent. Plans on rent convergence face massive opposition. Council tenants can't see why they should pay more and RSL wants to raise their rents even further. It's more expensive to set up private companies, to pay for transfer, pay for borrowing than for the council to do the work themselves. £1,500 per home more expensive, according to the National Audit Office. We need more and better housing. Homelessness is soaring, waiting lists are growing, private rents and buying are out of reach for most people in ordinary jobs."
"Ministers talk about home owning but Shelter's latest report says that 72 per cent of people want a home that is affordable, secure and accountable. Housing that the private market can't provide."
"The record of council housing is one that most of us are proud of. It isn't the idea of council housing that is wrong, the problem is that councils are not allowed to invest. Tenants, councillors and MPs all around the country are demanding an end to the coercion of tenants."
"In Camden we allowed our tenants and leaseholders a choice. 73 per cent chose to stay with the council. If tenants in a particular area want to be privatised, then that's their choice. But for the vast majority around the country that want to remain as council tenants and get their homes improved that is their right and so it should be."
"We need to back this motion, support the fourth option and create a real choice for two and half million tenants and their families. The choice of keeping their rights and improving all of our estates with direct investment in council housing. The government said after the election they would listen. Let's restate again what conference called for last year by eight to one. We want direct investment in council housing and we expect a Labour government to listen to the Labour Party conference."
"Partnership In Power talks about maintaining the integrity of conference, our communities believe and trust us, don't let them down. Support composite eight, reject nine and privatisation, I move. We are requesting a card vote on both motions."
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1,648 families were accepted as homeless by Camden council last year. Thirty years ago, when I was leader of Camden Council, 265 families were accepted as homeless. After eight years of Labour government, we have six times as many homeless families.
Thirty years ago 177 families were in temporary accomodation. The number now is 14 times that.
Camden has been prevented from building a single dwelling since 1988. The government prate on with their efforts to get people to give up being council tenants, spending a lot of time and effort. And 77% of tenants, and 77% of leaseholders voted No. The government's answer is to go back and try again, until we get the right result.
'The man in Whitehall knows best' has never been a good slogan for the Labour Party.
Some of the bigger housing associations are turning into property companies. There's nothing new about private property companies. In the 1980s Camden bought up 6,500 homes, 2,700 of them empty. Not one of the 3,800 tenants objected to being bought up by Camden Council. The government now wants them to go back.
The threats used to be that you'd find your mirror smashed if you didn't go. Now they say 'pity your mirror got smashed - if you stay with the council we'll leave it like that.'
At least in Camden the actual vote was done fairly enough. Listening to what's happening in other parts of the country, if you sent in UN inspectors to observe some of these elections, they would not find them acceptable.
There is no intelletual, rational basis for the government's anti-council housing position. The Treasury has confirmed that it doesn't make a jot of difference if Camden council spends money or an ALMO does. It's just dogma.
It's the same as the dogma of setting up City Academies, and in the NHS, a Labour government that wants to franchise out part of our health service. It's wrong, and I will continue to support any efforts anyone can make to stop it.
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'Choice' is a bogus term employment by the government to cover the increased involvement of the private sector.
Council housing is cheaper to build, cheaper to manage and cheaper to maintain than the private alternatives.
Government must start to release the huge land banks it has for public housing, instead of selling land at knock-down prices to developers.
It is my union's intention to raise this issue and ensure that democracy prevails.
I pledge my union's support to DCH - all power to your elbow.
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'All tenants have the right to a decent home, well maintained, at a price they can afford. All tenants should have a choice of who their landlord is. The problem is tenants do not have a fair choice. It is wrong to say to tenants 'you can choose - but if you don't choose the way we want you to, you won't get anything done.'
'Party conference motions have to count for something. We want to sit down with government at the next stages and work this out. But it will be necessary to keep the pressure up. If the government means what it says on choice then it will have to move on this.'
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'Many of our members work in local government, which has provided stable employment, apprenticeships, pensions and so on. Now we have privatisation by stealth. Glasgow [DLO?] is under threat despite all the promises before transfer. The workforce of 3,000 includes 200 disabled, 300 apprentices.
In Rotherham there wasn't a vote on ALMO but a 'consultation'. But there was no mention that the ALMO would sell off half the sheltered housing. That's what elderly and vulnerable people in Rotherham now face.
I appeal to the Labour government to show us it's the party of real choice. Give tenants a level playing field.'
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'You have more supporters in the PLP than you realise.'
'The people of Newcastle upon Tyne if they had been given a choice, would have opted to stay with the council.'
'Demand for council housing is coming back. In Newcastle council waiting lists are growing, even while the total population is still going down. The reasons are clear - rent levels in the private sector are a third higher.
'The need to provide decent housing in the public sector at affordable rents is growing. For us to turn our back on that is very, very wrong.'
'The Fourth Way is very important. People should have that choice. I think it's a pretty moderate thing to ask for, and your campaign has my wholehearted support.'
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The GMB are very strong supporters of this campaign.
Council housing gave us an environment in which we could grow up properly, getting an education, giving us a route out of the slums.
Sadly a million children in Britain are living in sub-standard housing, and 500,000 are homeless - 20% worse than ten years ago. Only good council housing can provide the route out for most of these people - we need more and better council housing.
40% of all local authority rent from council housing is kept by the exchequer; 25% of all Right to Buy receipts are kept by the exchequer - £2 billion a year, enough to meet the repair backlog over the next 5-6 years. If councils also had the right to borrow on a level playing field, they could begin to build new homes. The is not just a wish but it can be a reality.
We call on you to support [composite] 8 and oppose 9. And in the run up to the local elections we need to ask local councillors to support this campaign, if they want our support in the election. We need to target the pressure on government, and ask for support from the organisations that want our support.
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More than 130 packed into a standing room only DCH fringe meeting on Tuesday night (Sept 27) to hear MPs Austin Mitchell, Frank Dobson and Nick Brown and trade union leaders including
Jack Dromey (T&G), Alan Ritchie (UCATT), Brian Sutton (GMB) and John Allott (Amicus). The meeting was chaired by Alan Walter from DCH. Read extracts below...
There was a positive response to the proposal to organise a national lobby of Parliament on February 8th
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