Labour's housing policy: a disgrace

Housing in Vauxhall is cramped and falling to pieces in many cases. But Labour’s got no intention of doing anything about it.

Last weekend the Anticapitalists visited many people in Myatts Field South estate where housing was the number one issue.

We were told how the council had hired – in the words of one gentleman – ‘cowboy builders’ to repair roofing. But after wooden roofing had been put in place it was left untreated for two years to suffer the elements. Now the residents were complaining of leaks but nothing had been done to stop them or treat the roof.

In Kennington Park estate we met a young woman, Vanessa who was forced to share a bedroom with two other people. She had been on the housing waiting list for months.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise. Labour has build less than 3000 council homes since 1997. Whilst Kate Hoey in the hustings at St Marks church in Kennington explained how housing was her top priority (strange because very few in the constituency seem to think that), her party leaders do not to share this view – in fact quite the opposite.

On Friday Gordon Brown was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman who asked “What about the housing budget, are you going to cut that?”

Brown at least gave a fairly straightforward answer – “yes”, albeit in a roundabout way.

Here’s what he said in full:
“Housing is essentially a private sector activity. Let’s be honest about this, Jeremy. Housing is essentially a private sector activity. We’ve renovated about 2m houses over the last 13 years. I don’t see a need for us to continue with such a big renovation programme. And if you take all that capital investment, Jeremy, let me just finish because it will answer most of your questions, if you take our capital investment, we’ve built hospitals, we’ve built schools, we’ve built roads, we’ve built infrastructure, you don’t need to do that a second time. You don’t need to do that next year if you’ve built a hospital last year. And that’s why there is scope for us reducing public expenditure on capital investment projects without actually affecting the basic health service and the basic schools and the basic policing. You don’t need to build your hospital or your school twice.”

It’s a shame the Anticapitalists don’t get more airtime. Our answer would have been:
“Housing should be a public sector activity and be provided based upon need, under the control of tenants. We want to take back the £1 trillion spent on the banks and build one million new council homes. We want to organise a national repair and improve programme to put the unemployed to work on decent wages – improving our homes and our communities.”