Mike Hancock News
Mike Hancock to take £1,000 a year "tenants' tax" protest to Prime Minister and Parliament
Mike Hancock, MP is to take a protest by Portsmouth Council tenants to 10, Downing Street on Wednesday 25th February 2009 at 1pm. He will then raise the issue in a parliamentary debate in the afternoon (Wednesday 25th February 2009 – 2.30pm – 4pm – Westminster Hall (the second debating chamber of the House of Commons)).
The council tenants are angry because each household will be paying £1,000 a year over the next thirty years directly into the Government’s coffers. The Government takes money from Portsmouth and 205 other councils. Some money is distributed back to councils. 50 councils benefit and 156 pay money to the Government but there is an overall surplus that the Government keeps of £194 million. Therefore a large surplus - £4.6 million this year from Portsmouth alone goes into general Government expenditure – effectively a tax that only council tenants have to pay. With large increases due in the amount taken in coming years, Portsmouth City Council estimates that unless it is reformed Portsmouth’s 15,000 council tenants will pay £500 million over the next 30 years to the Government – over £1,000 a year.
According to the organisation that represents local councils nationally the Local Government Association, there is a £194 million surplus nationally between the money that the Government takes from local councils and the money that it re-distributes back to some of them. This will rise to £216 million next year through to £398 million in 2014/15 and £894 million in 2022/23. A total of £7.5 billion over the next 15 years. In addition 75% of the proceeds of a sale of a council house under the Right to Buy scheme goes to central Government. This will amount to £230 million in Portsmouth over the next 30 years.
Over 4,500 petition signatures have been gathered by Portsmouth Residents Consortium, the organisation that represents council tenants in the city, and their representatives along with Mike Hancock will hand them into 10, Downing Street on Wednesday at 1pm. Mike will then raise the issue with the Government in a Parliamentary debate he has obtained in the afternoon at 2.30pm.
Mike Hancock said: “This is nothing less than a stealth tax on 15,000 households in Portsmouth and some 5 million people nationally. Most council tenants are not well off and it is unacceptable that they are paying what is an extra tax. The Government has also outlined the importance in the current economic of putting money into infrastructure projects - money that could be going into improving people’s home, making them more energy efficient and building homes. This could be being spent right now not just in Portsmouth but in 156 areas across the country – instead it is being absorbed into the national finances. As usual with this Government you have to look at the small print and you find it takes with one hand, only to be slow to give out with the other. Portsmouth could for example build 2,000 new homes over the next five years with the money it will have lost.
“The Government also talks a lot about giving local people a direct say on how its money is spent. Surely therefore decisions about rents and how that money is spent should be taken locally – if necessary within a national framework. So this would be bad enough if they were just re-distributing money from one council area to another – but to take such a massive rake off while doing it is simply outrageous. I am determined to make the Government accountable on this. It announced a review of the whole system in 2007. It should get a move along and abolish the whole sorry system.”
Notes:
The Local Government Association position paper - “My rent went to Whitehall” with background on the issue is at: http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/772277, According to an answer to a Parliamentary Question. The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Surplus – i.e. the money it takes from the HRA of councils minus the money it redistributes back to councils nationally for the next 15 years in £million is:
2008-09: 194; 2009-10: 216; 2010-11: 303, 2011-12: 421, 2012-13: 424, 2013-14: 376; 2014-15: 398, 2015-16: 434, 2016-17: 476, 2017-18: 543, 2018-19: 611, 2019-20: 680, 2020-21: 750, 2021-22: 822, 2022-23: 894.
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