Coalition faces rift over secure tenancies
David Cameron’s suggestion that new social tenants should not receive lifetime tenancies has threatened to divide the coalition government.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes spoke out against the prime minister’s proposals in an interview with the BBC.
He said the idea, which was floated by Mr Cameron during a public question and answer session in Birmingham this week ‘is not a Liberal Democrat policy, it is not a coalition policy, it is not in the election manifesto of either party, it was not in the coalition agreement’.
He added that while the prime minister is entitled to suggest ending secure tenancies ‘our party would need a lot of persuading that it has merit or could work’.
Mr Cameron suggested that social tenancies should be for fixed periods of five or 10 years. His ideas have met sharp opposition.
‘The real issue is the lack of new affordable housing and it is the government’s cutbacks in public expenditure that will make the situation worse.’
Dr Tim Brown, De Montfort University
Former Labour housing minister John Healey said ‘what is needed is more secure homes not less’.
He added: ‘Before the election Labour warned the Tories had a secret plan to get rid of secure tenancies and they accused us of scaremongering. Less than three months later we have the truth.’
Charity Crisis warned the plans could lead to an increase in homelessness.
Chief executive Leslie Morphy said: ‘This is likely to have the worst impact on the many vulnerable people in social housing for whom the stability it provides is really critical. What’s more these changes could penalise social tenants who move into employment and act as a real disincentive to work.’
Mr Cameron’s ideas were followed by an announcement from housing minister Grant Shapps on plans for a national scheme to allow social tenants to swap homes.
Dr Tim Brown, director of the Centre for Comparative Housing Research at De Montfort University in Leicester likened the moves to ‘rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic’.
‘The real issue is the lack of new affordable housing and it is the government’s cutbacks in public expenditure that will make the situation worse,’ he said.
In other quarters the suggestion of a mutual exchange programme for social tenants was better received.
David Williams, executive director strategy and new business at Circle Anglia, said: ‘The creation of a national database will be a huge step forward for social housing tenants. Poor mobility within the sector is currently preventing hundreds of thousands of people from moving home to take up employment, care for sick and elderly relatives and relieve overcrowding.’
Mr Healey gave a more cautious welcome. ‘Making it easier for tenants to exchange with one another for more suitable accommodation is of course a good thing but no substitute for building new housing,’ he said.
‘I also fear these measures could be taken as a green light by some to pressure people out of their homes - not least, as the announcement follows David Cameron letting the cat out of the bag on the Tories’ secret agenda to remove security of tenure.’
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Readers' comments (29)
Sidney Webb | 05/08/2010 9:16 am
Glad to see the great and the good agree that this outburst from the Prime Rib is a smoke screen designed to distract from the real issue, namely the shortage of available homes and the dire shortage of affordable homes.
Hopefully now the various axe-grinders will see this for what it is and realise that arguing for higher housing provision offers greater security and more affordability for all.
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michael barratt | 05/08/2010 9:20 am
Banks and 'wheeler dealers' (not worthy of the name business people) with their reckless financial practices have brought Britain to the brink. However, the price for this recklessness is not being paid for by those who created the mess. Banks are prospering due to Government handouts and at the expense of savers. Banks are acquiring capital at next to nothing (0.5%-1.5% on many savings accounts) while they lend money out at high rates of interest. No wonder banks are making record profits.
Yet to clear up the economic mess created by those banks and city high flyers the LIBCON Government has declared war on the disabled and other socially disadvantaged groups. The LIBCONS intend to introduce policies that will inevitable lead to the economic cleansing of our cities and the possible compulsory resettlement of the 'under performers' on benefits to provincial backwaters.
How could the Liberal Democrats sign themselves up to such neocon policies that will inevitably see their obliteration as an independent political party at the ballot box?
Is it not amazing that those who are the first to complain about the disabled and economically disadvantaged receiving social income and state benefits are the first to stand in line for government handouts to salvage their businesses that have gone 'pear shaped' due to their recklessness and incompetence.
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Junior | 05/08/2010 9:52 am
Look at the last few days with all the banks making a profit. Let them pick up the Housing Benefit bill for this year for the Country. They cause like. Cannot we have a poll under a vote of no confidence of both cameron and clegg on this website
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Gavin Rider | 05/08/2010 9:59 am
Michael
>> "the LIBCON Government has declared war on the disabled and other socially disadvantaged groups" <<
Really? How does the idea of abandoning lifetime housing security for new social housing tenants equate to a declaration of war on the disabled or disadvantaged?
It seems to me that social housing tenants have significantly greater ADVANTAGE in terms of housing security than just about anyone else. How are they "disadvantaged"?
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Michael Read | 05/08/2010 10:46 am
Good old John Healey.
It seems to have slipped his mind that Margaret Beckett when she held the housing brief was thinking of the same thing as David Cameron was proposing.
It's got to be the civil servants reheating the same old idea. Not enough of them have lost their heads, obviously.
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Sidney Webb | 05/08/2010 10:47 am
Gavin - spot on.
Now what is needed is to argue that all should share the advantage, making the security commonplace.
What is the sense in arguing 'because I haven't got nobody should have'? If we continue down that line nobody will have anything unless everybody has it except for the elite - that was called Stalinism or Russian Communism. I'm sure we don't want to go down that path do we?
Best then to argue for levelling up rather than levelling down - in the former lays peace and harmony - in the latter despair and hopelessness.
I now await to hear from the leveller camps.
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michael barratt | 05/08/2010 10:50 am
Gavin
We live in a unequal society that has become more so over the last 30 years. The LIBCON assault on the 'battlers' goes beyond the very important issue of secure tenancies. I refer to the social tenant phobia in the pages of Daily Mail and Daily Express, the thinly veiled threats of Messrs Cameron, Shapps and Duncan Smith. Little is heard from Clegg on the subject - perhaps he is just playing good cop, bad cop?
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kass | 05/08/2010 11:25 am
Simon Hughes but well try to deny Liddem have nothing to do with Cameron intent in obliterating secure tenancies, but the fact is the Libdem were not aware of conservatives goals in social housing whether they were in the manifesto or not.
The fact is unless the LIbDem get out of the coalition and call for another election they will be the one to take the brunt of any conservative disaster in social housing, because the governemnt carrying out this onslaought is in power only because the Libdem support the coalition.
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philipjohn001 | 05/08/2010 1:11 pm
At the end of the day this topic needs to be brought out into the open and discussed. If we don't let it come out they will just talk and decide behind closed doors.
I'm not in favour of ending secure tenancies but we do needs to do something.
The days of being able to live in the same social house for life must be looked at - the levels of underoccupation in the country are a joke...it's all well and good talking about people having a 'right' to live where they want but people have a right to hospital bed too - WHEN THEY NEED IT. Maybe the same 'need' logic should be applied to social housing too?
Either way it needs to come out and be discussed
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Sidney Webb | 05/08/2010 1:17 pm
And so that way leads us to the logic of the workhouse - a bed for the deserving poor, who once they've paid their due can leave their bedspace for another deserving wretch. Welcome to the 21st Century Big Society, the final undoing of 300 years of social evolution.
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