Beckett warned off tenancy review
Housing minister Margaret Beckett has distanced herself from reports that she is considering scrapping lifetime tenancies, after being warned by Labour insiders they would not accept the move.
Speaking at a seminar organised by think tank the Smith Institute, Mrs Beckett dismissed newspaper reports that her department was drawing up proposals to make social tenancies subject to regular reviews of tenants’ finances. ‘To say it was speculation is to put it mildly,’ she said.
Earlier that afternoon, the minister had been warned by members of the party’s housing policy group that any attempt to water down security of tenure would be unacceptable.
Labour national policy forum member Daniel Zeichner said she received the message ‘loud and clear’.
‘We get no sense that Mrs Beckett will entertain such proposals,’ he said. ‘She’s a very experienced Labour politician and she knows that this is not the direction that a Labour government should be going in.
’On being asked whether there would be an end to lifetime tenancies Mrs Beckett told Inside Housing: ‘I’ve just made it absolutely plain that no minister has had anything to do with what you’ve read.’
The suggestion of fixed-term contracts with regular means testing for social tenants, which has already provoked a furious reaction, came in for more criticism this week.
National Housing Federation chief executive David Orr said: ‘Forcing people to show they are poor in order to stay in their home would be a disincentive to looking for a job.
’But Mrs Beckett argued that the current system was not sustainable, as it concentrated dependency and disadvantage in some estates by making it hard for people to move in or out of social homes. She indicated she wanted to encourage people to look beyond social housing to private rental and low-cost homeownership.