UNISON will campaign against the Housing Act and raise the profile of social housing as a resource for all, the union’s local government conference decided in Brighton this afternoon.
Proposing a motion for Cambridge City and South local government, Liz Brennan described the plans as a “pernicious piece of law [that] will only make the housing crisis worse.”
Glenn Williams (above), for the service group executive, said that “the Housing and Planning Act is now law,” but urged delegates to “be very clear, this is an attempt to destroy social housing in England and Wales.”
He went on to say that, where, 35 years ago, there were over five million council houses in England alone, there are now just over one million. Across England, Scotland and Wales, over 4.5 million council homes have been lost in the years since.
Not only should the union be campaigning to stop to further depletion of council housing stock, but for the redevelopment of council housing.
Phoebe Watkins of Camden said that, with no regulations in place, councils have no idea how they will implement the bill, which includes plans to:
- force councils to sell off ‘high value’ homes when they become empty;
- end lifetime secure tenancies;
- introduce means testing for tenants;
- effectively end direct government investment in new rented social housing; and
- cut the numbers of permanent sites for gypsies and travellers.
She stressed that the only people who stood to benefit from these moves would be the likes of speculators, developers and buy-to-let landlords.
Conference also urged the executive to survey members to find out the effect of the proposals in order to better inform campaigning on the issue, and work with Labour Link and Labour councils to campaign for the 2012 housing settlement debt to be written off.
