Housing benefit cuts will increase homelessness

Housing benefit cuts will increase homelessness, Green Party leader warns

“Conservative-Lib Dem cuts will hit the poorer people in society”, says Lucas

Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green Party and MP for Brighton Pavilion, has warned that the coalition government's cuts to housing benefit could result in increasing social problems with serious debt and homelessness.

The Green Party leader was commenting on a recent report published by homelessness charity Crisis. The report highlights the social risks of housing benefit cuts, which will affect 936,960 households across the UK who are currently claiming local housing allowance (LHA). On average, these households will lose over £600 a year.

The report also warns that cuts to housing benefit could have hidden costs in the future, in order to deal with the social problems of homelessness, including health problems and providing accommodation.

Housing benefit cut is equivalent to big increase in income tax for poorer people

Caroline Lucas MP said:

“Consider someone earning £16,000 (after tax-free allowance) and receiving housing benefit. If they lose £728 that would be the equivalent of paying an income tax rise of over 4.5 per cent.

“These particular Tory-Lib Dem cuts will leave more people struggling to pay the rent, more people falling into serious debt and ultimately more people becoming homeless.

“This is very unfair, coming at a time when many of these people are facing economic uncertainty or even redundancy.

“Once again we see the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition’s cuts hitting the poorer people in society. The government could avoid these cuts by properly tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion perpetrated by some of the wealthiest, which could raise billions of pounds a year.”

Protest Against Nottingham Social Care Cuts

Nottingham City Unison have called a demonstration outside the City Council Budget Meeting on Monday 8th March at 12.30 in Old Market Square. The Labour City Council is proposing cuts in Adult Social Services as part of an £18 million package of cuts in its 2010/2011 budget. The proposed cuts include -

* Proposed closure of Riverside Residential Home (Bulwell) for adults with learning disabilities
*Closure of the Willows Older Persons Day Centre at weekends
*A new daily £2 charge for attendance at all adult day centres
*Cuts in day care for adults living in residential and nursing homes
*A 3% increase in charges for homecare, meals at home and transport to day centres
*Cuts in City Council Deaf Sevice

It is particularly ironic that Labour politicians and activists have been prominently flying their flags at protests against the Conservative controlled Notts County Council over the last week as the Tories launch a similar cuts programme targeted on day centres, residential homes etc in the County. Labour in the City are following the same policy as Tories in the County - targeting the most vulnerable and those they estimate are least likely to kick up a fuss or cost them votes.

Workers and service users need to show the City Labourites that we oppose their cuts every bit as much as those being implemented by the County Tories.

Weekly Links - 09/03/08

Firstly, away from politics for a while, and as a Yorkshire born lad myself, may I say Glory, Glory Barnsley FC! who yesterday repeated their FA Cup "giant killing" of Liverpool by defeating the "mighty" (ho-ho)Chelsea. Barnsley's success and the promotion chasing efforts of Doncaster Rovers in League One give some much needed excitement to football in South Yorkshire, away from the trials of the two Sheffield Teams. Come on Barnsley and Donny!

Onto the blogs, and a football link there to start too - Anton at Enemies of Reason Blog has a piece on the latest despicable behaviour of the Express newspaper - this time in relation to Paul Gascoigne and his troubles.

Elsewhere, Phil from A Very Public Sociologist blog reports the death of holocaust survivor and veteran anti-fascist Leon Greenman.

Over at the Cedar Lounge Revolution there are some interesting thoughts on the return to print of the anti-postmodernist hoaxer Sokal.

Louise reports on the International Women's Day events in London this weekend over at the Socialist Unity Blog.

Septic Isle reviews the latest George Romero film, Diary of the Dead at Obsolete.

Liam MacUaid this week publishes an account of the situation with the Green Party in the USA as regards the upcoming elections, written by New York State Green Party Member Steffie Brooks.

Jack Ray has interesting reflections this week on the meaning of democracy and self determination in a world of globalised capitalism.

The GPTU blog has Derek Wall's Green Party statement on the Shelter dispute.

Green From Below this week has Guy Debord's Situationist Theses on Traffic.

Jim at Daily (Maybe) reports on the call from Green MEP Caroline Lucas for progressive opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. He also has a piece on the Bush regime and torture, and some thoughts on death. A cheery note to end on this week!

Defend Council Housing Prepare For Lobby

Defend Council Housing are preparing for a major lobby of Parliament on 22nd January where they will be seeking support for an amendment to the Government's current Housing Bill to allow councils the "fourth option" - building social housing to meet need and improving current housing stock. With the credit crunch and a teetering economy this becomes all the more pressing.

More information here.

Defend Council Housing Fringe and Conference

Defend Council Housing, the campaign fighting to defend and improve public housing in Britain, has a fringe meeting at the Unison Conference this week. This is on Monday lunchtime at The Belgrave Hotel, across King Street from the Conference Centre on Brighton seafront.

DCH also have a national conference planned for Thurday 12th July at the TUC. It is important that the pressure is kept up on Labour, whose incoming leadership have been making conciliatory noises about being in favour of the "Fourth Option" backed by DCH. DCH are now aiming for concrete proposals and a timetable if the warm words are to be more than honeymoon PR. They demand implementation of the Fourth Option to :

1. Improve all existing council homes and estates
2. Start a new council house building programme
3. Ensure sufficient funds to maintain all council homes in future years

Left Greens continue to support the demands of Defend Council Housing and demand that elected Greens take a principled stand on this, and other issues.

Defend Public Services And Housing In Lambeth

Happy to be able to post details of these important events coming up in London - a good example of making the links and building the alliances necessary to defend and improve public services.

Lambeth Trades Union Council
Peace & Progress

Public Meeting
"Defend Public Services & Housing in Lambeth!"

21 May 2007
7:30 pm
336 Centre, Brixton Rd SW9

Chair
Anita Wright - Lambeth NUT

speakers inc:
John McDonnell MP
and speakers from:
Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils

National Pensioners Convention

Lambeth SOS

Lambeth Defend Council Housing

NUT anti-academy campaign

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Southwark and Lambeth


Press Release


For immediate release
9 May 2007

Protest Vigil outside the Maudsley Hospital
Denmark Hill
Saturday 12 May 2007, 5.30 pm

Save the Emergency Clinic - Closure Unlawful
Save the Felix Post Unit
Campaigners demand an urgent meeting with Patricia
Hewitt

Health workers, service users, pensioners and the
community will be protesting outside the Maudsley
Mental Health Hospital to demand that the Emergency
Clinic and the Felix Post Unit, an elderly day
hospital are not closed.

"This protest has been called to 'back up' the legal
action against the Maudsley Hospital Trust for not
putting into place alternative arrangements for
emergency clinic users at the neighbouring Kings
College Hospital accident and emergency department.
Even though we only have days to save the emergency
clinic we believe the fight is not over yet and we
want people to come and support us.
We believe the Maudsley Hospital executives will be
breaking the law if they go ahead with the closure of
the emergency clinic. We demand that Patricia Hewitt
meets us and intervenes immediately to stop the
Emergency Clinic from closing".
A spokesperson from Southwark and Lambeth KONHSP said.


Service users and campaigners have threatened to do
all they can to keep the emergency clinic open.
For more information about Saturday's protest vigil
and the campaign see below.
For more information contact
southwarkkonhsp@googlemail.com
Keep Our NHS Public

Important Motions Passed At Green Party Spring Conference

A number of important motions, some potentially far reaching in their effects, were carried by the Green Party conference.

The hotly debated "leadership" motion was passed, meaning that there will be a full debate at the Autumn conference in Liverpool in September, followed by a full ballot of the membership in November on whether the Party want to replace principal speakers with a leader and deputy leader.

The motion proposed by fellow Green Left blogger Councillor Matt Sellwood to commit the Party to opposing new ALMOS (Arms Length Management Organistions) in housing and to defending housing stock retentions was carried. Well done Matt and everyone who worked for and voted for this motion! Whilst on the subject it is worth mentioning that the latest Defend Council Housing news bulletin has just come out, and includes on the final page 'Ten Questions For Council Election Candidates'.

Another significant motion that was carried was the emergency motion put forward by Green Party Trade Union Group (GPTU) members in defence of the NHS in the light of the recently announced pay awards for nurses and others in the NHS and ongoing difficulties around the country. The motion restated the Green Party's support for a publicly owned and controlled health service and ended with a call for support for the proposed summer National demonstration:

"We call for full support for a National demonstration against NHS cuts and privatisation and for the fullest possible publicisation of this position by the relevant sectors of the party."

Latest From Defend Council Housing

Here is the latest news from Defend Council Housing (DCH) regarding their new pamphlet and response to the Cave Review of Social Housing Regulation:

'Dear Gordon: Invest in decent, affordable, secure and accountable council housing’ is a new Defend Council Housing pamphlet to be launched at a meeting 6pm, Tuesday February 20, Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, House of Commons.

Speakers will include: Austin Mitchell MP (chair. House of Commons Council Housing group), Jack Dromey (chair. Labour Party NPF housing working group and Deputy Gen Sec TGWU) and Alan Walter (chair. Defend Council Housing).

The pamphlet makes the financial and political case for the ‘Fourth Option’ to improve existing and build new council homes. It also takes on the recent neo liberal offensive that proposes to remove our life-long, secure tenancy; deregulate (including removing rent controls) and open council housing and housing associations up to market forces (see Cave Review below).

Privatisation of council housing is deeply unpopular. In 2006 tenants voted NO in more ballots than ever before. With mortgage repossessions up and private developers and RSL landlords failing to provide the homes people need the case for investing in improving existing and building new council housing is stronger than ever.

The Labour Party’s National Policy Forum housing working group is expected to report later this month (following the third consecutive Labour Party conference voting to call on “government to provide the ‘fourth option’ of direct investment to council housing as a matter of urgency”). We need to step up pressure on government:

1. Register (by email) to attend the House of Commons meeting on Feb 20
2. Forward on this email and distribute widely the meeting flyer and DCH February Briefing
3. Ask your MP to join 102 MPs who have already signed EDM 136 Funding Decent Council Housing
4. Put DCH’s ‘Ten Questions to Candidates’ to all politicians standing in forthcoming elections
5. Read the DCH submission to ‘The Cave Review of Social Housing Regulation’ and send in supporting arguments

Latest From Defend Council Housing Campaign

Here is the latest from Defend Council Housing who are rallying support for Labour Campaign group MP Austin Mitchell's Early Day Motion on decently funded council housing:

Austin Mitchell MP has tabled a new motion (EDM 136 Funding Decent Council Housing) following the Queens Speech. Ask MP(s) to sign to demonstrate their support for the ‘Fourth Option’ for council housing, a ‘level playing field’ and real choice for council tenants (email your MP).


149 MPs backed motion EDM 48 in the last Parliament. Ask all tenants and trade union organisations to write to local MPs urging them to sign up. Tell your MPs to lobby the Treasury for the ‘Fourth Option’ to be included in the Comprehensive Spending Review next spring and ask them to join the House of Commons Council Housing group.



Majority of tenants’ ballots voting NO

The majority of ballots in 2006 have gone against privatisation including 4/4 ballots in Scotland. Tenants, trade unionists and councillors opposing privatisation are still massively out resourced by one-sided council campaigns but we have showed we can stop them when we organise effectively. If a council is pushing transfer, ALMO or PFI in your region please help campaign against (see list available on DCH website) in forthcoming ballots to finally kill privatisation off.



Meeting at DCLG

On Tuesday (Nov 21) Austin Mitchell led a delegation to meet DCLG officials to examine the financial issues. This meeting was promised a year ago by David Miliband and Yvette Cooper. They were unable to defend Ruth Kelly’s dramatic assertion at the Labour Party conference that the ‘Fourth Option’ would cost £12billion and we are now demanding a detailed costing of how much it would cost to meet Decent Homes for all council housing.



Debt write off
The No votes in Scotland very starkly put the focus on a ‘level playing field’ on debt write off. If the Treasury will write off council housing debt on privatisation why won’t they write off (or take over) council debt when tenants choose to keep the council as their landlord? Put this question to all politicians – including those who are considering standing for Leadership and Deputy Leadership of the party in government.



Affiliate, order material and donate

Encourage tenants organisations and trade unions to distribute copies of the DCH national newspaper and the ‘Case for Council Housing in 21C Britain’ pamphlet. Make sure your organisation is affiliated and agree a generous donation to enable DCH to campaign locally and nationally.



Please forward this email to tenants, trade unionists, councillors and others…



Further information on the campaign website

Also browsing today I discovered the interesting web site of Tom MacFarlane - called Democratic Deficit. Tom is a retired teacher who harvests interesting stories from the media on the ongoing destruction of our liberties, services, welfare and environment in the name of neo-liberalism. Tom comments in an informed way, referencing philosophers and thinkers such as Polanyi. He also has some pretty sites of photographs.

Questions for New Labour about housing

I just received the following action alert from Defend Council Housing:

Tonight “The prime minister will use a Labour party broadcast to encourage members of the public to email or text their questions on the Queen's speech and other political issues.” (Guardian 15/11/06)

Defend Council Housing has ten questions council tenants, councillors and trade unionists might like to use as a basis for putting questions to Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly:

1. Government says it believes in ‘choice in public services’. Will Ministers now respect the decision of council tenants who have voted to keep the council as their landlord and for the local authority to carry out improvement to our homes and estates direct?

2. This government was elected in 2005 on a manifesto commitment "By 2010 we will ensure that all social tenants benefit from a decent, warm home with modern facilities." Will Ministers keep that commitment to council tenants?

3. Labour Party Conference backed the ‘fourth option’ for council housing for a third consecutive year. Are Ministers listening?

4. Year on year government is siphoning money out of tenants rents and profiting from ‘right to buy’ receipts. Will Ministers give a clear commitment to ring fence all the money that belongs to council housing so that democratically elected local authorities can use every penny to improve our homes and estates?

5. Since council housing is cheaper to build, manage and maintain than the alternatives and the private sector (including so called Registered Social Landlords) are failing to meet housing need will the government allow local authorities to improve existing and build new council homes?

6. Privatisation of council housing costing a fortune: millions spent on glossy PR campaigns, consultants and set up costs. Local authorities are now asking for nearly £1 billion of public money in ‘gap funding’ to subsidise stock transfer. Why can’t this money be spent allowing councils to improve homes which is what tenants want?

7.Isn’t it a public scandal that Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) receive billions of pounds in public subsidy yet are sitting on “reserves of £10.8 billion, of which £5.1 billion are revenue reserves, and a pre-tax surplus of £276 million.” (Inside Housing, 4 Feb 2006). Why can’t this money be taken back and given to democratically accountable local authorities to invest in housing improvements and new homes?

8. Tenants in 55 authorities with Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) were promised that the new arms length companies were not a vehicle to privatise their homes and that they would be able to revert back to direct council management once the Decent Homes standard has been met. Will Ministers keep that promise?

9. Council tenants have a unique ‘secure’ tenancy, lower rents and can elect their landlord. Will Ministers commit to defending ‘secure’ tenancies and oppose recent calls for our ‘life-long’ tenancy to be taken away forcing council tenants and others to buy or rent on the open market?

10. Why is government diverting public subsidies to encourage home ownership when 1.5 million households are on council housing waiting lists, many of the 3 million existing council tenants and their families chose to remain as council tenants and the DCLG Select Committee, Shelter and others have expressed serious concerns about this policy?

See latest DCH eight page newspaper, new pamphlet and campaign website for background information, facts and figures.

Sign the Open Letter to Tony Blair online. Get your MP to sign the new EDM (to be tabled this week).

Please Bcc DCH into any emails you send to Ministers – and send us their replies.

Defend Council Housing

This looks like an interesting new pamphlet from the Defend Council Housing campaign group-
Defend Council Housing has produced a new 98 page pamphlet making the case for a change in government policy to fund direct investment to improve existing and build new council homes. Download “The Case for council housing in 21st Century Britain” and DCH Interim Response to DCLG discussion paper.