- Conference
- 2012 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2012
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes:
1) that the ConDem government is proposing cuts to housing benefits that will result in financial hardship and even evictions for hundreds of thousands of private and public sector tenants. This is not only the unemployed but families in work on low wages and pensioners;
2) new limits will restrict the maximum amount of housing benefit payable weekly to £250 for a one-bedroom property, £290 for two bedrooms, £340 for three bedrooms and £400 for four bedrooms and nobody will get more than £400 a week, which means a maximum of £20,000 a year;
3) the Chartered Institute of Housing said there are likely to be thousands more claimants than properties that are affordable solely on money claimed using local housing allowance, which is the benefit paid to tenants of private landlords. They fear low income families will be left with the choice of reducing spending on food to pay their rent or moving out, Conference believes this is fundamentally wrong;
4) the Chartered Institute of Housing, expect up to 800,000 households to be priced out of their own communities and away from jobs and schools;
5) cheaper rental areas will face an influx of people and families from more expensive areas. Local education, social and medical services will not be able to cope with such dramatic population changes;
6) this ConDem government has stopped a hundred year old tradition by all previous political parties of subsidising the cost of building new homes for low income families. It is also proposing to end security of tenure for new tenants and charging them “near market” rents. This has been estimated as meaning that an average three bedroom home for rent will cost an extra £130 per week on top of the existing social rent. The government has also slashed existing new build and refurbishment programmes;
7) this ConDem government has removed the safety net of ensuring that vulnerable and homeless families have the right to re-housed in secure public sector housing and instead are to be housed in unregulated private sector properties.
We believe that this is an ideological attack by the Condem government upon the low paid and those most at need. There is a battle of ideas in housing that at this moment progressives are not winning. We need to oppose and campaign against all regressive housing policies.
Government’s housing measures do not have an electoral mandate. They will create more evictions, homelessness and fear, but will not curb high rents. They do nothing to create secure, affordable homes for rent desperately needed for all those who are priced out by the housing market.
Conference further notes that the only short term solution to Britain’s housing crisis is the effective regulation of the private rented sector. For this to work all tenants must be offered security of tenure, transparency and certainty over the rate of increase in rents and protection from rogue landlords and letting agents.
The only long term solution to adequately house the 4.5million on Council waiting lists is to build more homes. These homes must have secure tenancies and affordable rents. The ConDem government’s expectation for new homes to be funded through higher rents at 80% of market rents will mean fewer truly affordable new homes. The ConDem government blames housing applicants for the length of waiting lists, rather than the government’s woefully inadequate funding and Right to Buy policies.
Conference further notes that whilst these issues impact across the UK, some regions face disproportionate problems. For example, the South West is the only region in which wages are lower and house prices higher than the national average – the average home in the South West costs 12 times the average salary, compared to a cost of eight times the average salary across the country. This also faces huge problems because of second homes and NIMBYism, which push up prices, destroy communities and force many young people from their local areas in which they grew up and away from family support networks.
Conference also notes the way in which the housing crisis has particular relevance to young people. The average age of a first time buyer is now 37. At the same time housing benefit changes mean that up until the age of 35, claimants will only qualify for help to live in a room in a shared house.
Conference welcomes the work that UNISON, as the UK’s housing union, has done through the Housing Voice campaign alliance to highlight the national, regional and demographic issues and mobilise wide civil society support for housing to be a political priority – comparable with heath and education. This is clearly work that has to continue and intensify as we head towards the next election. As such Conference calls upon the National Executive Council to develop a work plan that will:
a) support branches to build alliances to campaign at community level on housing issues – holding local politicians to account and demanding action to address local and regional issues;
b) make the social and economic case at the level of national Parliaments for public investment in new council and housing association homes;
c) highlight challenges faced by our members and their families living in the private rented sector and work with Labour Link to push for regulations on tenancies and rents to form part of the Labour party’s alternative to coalition policy;
d) coordinate a campaign against so-called government housing reforms. This to include: production of information for branches and members, encouraging branches to distribute information and hold meetings to discuss their response to the reforms; encouraging branches to lobby councils and housing association boards to join us in opposing government reforms;
e) provide information and resources to branches on how they can support members facing housing difficulties by referral to agencies or through UNISON Welfare;
f) continue to work through the Housing Voice alliance to put genuinely affordable housing at the top of the political agenda;
g) we request that National Labour Link considers affiliating to the Labour Housing Group in order to help win the battle of ideas in housing during the next general election campaign;
h) council housing to remain a cornerstone of decent affordable housing;
i) it must be an overriding priority of the next government that there must be a renaissance and rebirth of good quality, affordable, accountable and secure public housing;
j) seek further joint working with other trade unions in the local government, housing association and voluntary sector, Defend Council Housing, tenants groups, councillors and MPs;
k) explore with other like minded organisations (e.g. Shelter, Shelter Scotland) the most effective form that regulation of the private rented sector should take, and the role that rent controls could play within such a system of regulation;
l) campaign for any homes lost through the right to buy be replaced by social housing on affordable and not market rents;
m) campaign for the repeal of section 144 – 181 of the Localism Bill;
n) work with the Labour Link and the shadow housing minister to keep the housing crisis in the public domain;
o) reject huge council rent rises driven by government debt and inflation formula;
p) no scapegoating: the shortage of housing is a result of under investment and failure to build. It is not caused by existing or would-be tenants in work or not, of whatever race or religion;
q) defend security of tenure for existing and future tenants.