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Labour should sort out funding for council housing renovations
• RICHARD Osley wrote about the vote on council housing at the Labour party conference (Homes vote lost for a third year, October 5).
He reported comment from the Defend Council Housing pressure Group that: “They can no longer ignore the tenants. The government will be forced to act.”
The alternative point of view is that two previous resolutions failed to move the government, and another seems unlikely to succeed.
I am afraid that there is a very clear alternative to government acting. Camden gets no money for decent homes, and none for basic and vital repairs.
There will be a level playing field as Ruth Kelly hinted, one where no one gets major capital for repairs after the new spending review.
There will be a new party leader and deputy by the time of the next conference, so she can assume that she will not face the issue again.
Indeed, as housing capital finance for London may well move to the Mayor, her successor will probably not do so either.
As she pointed out, the public finances are not in good shape; according to the European Commission, the UK is “just on track to correct its excessive deficit by the end of the 2006/7 financial year.”
Why should she want to help Camden Council, which never did what the Labour government wanted with its housing, and has now switched to a Lib Dem/Tory administration?
The conference vote was less convincing than before, since a full one-third voted against the resolution.
Could the conference be tiring of the issue, with delegates whose councils have co-operated with the government seeing no reason why Camden should do better than they?
John Prescott offered a review of housing finance before the first of the three votes, something Defend Council Housing turned down. So, Ruth Kelly has offered no more than he did three years ago.
Anna Stewart can say that other parties now in power should “work towards a solution” but it would be more useful if she suggested what a possible solution might be. Residents of Holborn supported Labour at the recent election, so that it holds 11 of our 12 council seats.
Could I suggest that we deserve better from Labour than we have had since May and that they should help find a solution to this situation, which they endorsed?
PETER WRIGHT
Chair, Holborn District Management Committee |
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