Housing policies thrashed out at Inside Housing’s first hustings event
Teather: write off debt
Local authority housing debt could be paid off by all taxpayers and not just councils with housing stock, under a Liberal Democrat government.
Sarah Teather, the party’s housing spokesperson, floated the idea this week at a hustings event organised by Inside Housing, which saw the housing representatives from all the major parties lock horns.
Ms Teather argued that redistributing debt among councils would restrict their ability to build new homes, and was unfair to tenants.
The government has issued a consultation on dismantling the current housing revenue account subsidy system, and allowing councils to keep housing revenue. To achieve this, it plans to reallocate the £18 billion debt among the 202 local authorities involved.
Ms Teather said: ‘I am not sure whether it is right to get poor council tenants in one area to pay for poor council tenants in another. I think this is one area where we have to stump up the cash from general taxation.’
Grant Shapps, Conservative housing spokesperson, accused Labour of chopping and changing policies on a whim. ‘In the past 13 years there have been 10 different housing acts,’ he said. ‘What good has it given us?’
He added that a Conservative government would look to extend the right to buy with cash from sales spent on building new affordable housing.
Jenny Jones, speaking for the Green Party, said addressing housing need was key to tackling climate change. ‘If people can’t keep their homes, they are not going to care about the environment,’ she said.
Housing minister John Healey pledged to make housing a priority at the next election. He said: ‘In the 1997 election, in the 2001 election and in the 2005 election, housing was just one issue that really did not receive the sort of debate and attention it needs. Part of my job between now and the next election is to make it a priority.’
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Readers' comments (2)
Len White | 23/10/2009 0:50 am
Sarah Teather says the debt should be written off at a direct cost to the Exchequer of £18bn. Yet her front bench colleagues have been almost rabid on the need for cuts to reduce the public sector deficit. They can't do both - so who is speaking for the Lib Dems - Teather or Clegg and Cable? Or don't they know?
And no surprise that Shapps doesn't seem to have answered the question at all!
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sharon | 23/10/2009 9:42 am
Sarah Teather commenting that she doesn't think its fair that poor council tenants in one area should pay for poor council tenants in another is an unfair comment in itself. Its hardly fair that the taxpayer should be considered, yet again, as a handy cash cow for when all doesn't go according to plan.
Successive Governments have made a right pigs ear on housing in general and how do we know that a Conservative government will plough the money made from 'right to buy' in building more affordable housing? It didn't in the eighties. Whilst the proceeds of RTB sales were paid to the local authorities they had to use it to reduce and then pay off their debts rather than being able to spend it on building more homes. This led to council housing stock being drastically reduced especially in areas where property prices were high, such as London and the south-east of England. Is this why Ms Teather is looking to the taxpayer?
In February 2008 the Housing Corporation allocated £3.3bn (40% of the 8.4bn it had to hand out between 2008 and 2011) to 105 affordable housing developers (and 13 private developers). This was thought to be able to provide around 155,000 new affordable homes of which two thirds were to made available for rent. Is that figure still accurate? I suspect it may not be.
Sarah Teathers comment suggest to me that ministers are becoming increasingly complacent about turning to the taxpayer as a panacea for all financial ills which will surely lead to more bad decisions and misery for all.
Sharon
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