MP speaks out against the “daylight robbery” by Government of Portsmouth council tenants

01/04/2008

Mike Hancock (Lib Dem – Portsmouth South) spoke up for Council Housing in Parliament yesterday (31st March 2008). He backed an amendment to the Housing Bill that would have seen a boost to Council Housing. The new amendment saw the biggest rebellion of Labour MPs under Gordon Brown’s premiership with 28 Labour MPs including five former ministers - Frank Dobson, Peter Kilfoyle, Michael Meacher, Frank Field, and Kate Hoey voting against the Government and for the amendment. However the amendment was defeated with most Labour MPs including Portsmouth North MP, Sarah McCarthy-Fry voting against the amendment. Conservative MPs including Havant MP, David Willetts abstained.

Mike Hancock in the debate also highlighted how under Housing Revenue Account arrangements some £100 million over ten years will go from Portsmouth council tenants rents to the Government.

Mike Hancock said in the debate: “The council tenants in my city are effectively mugged by the Government year by year. If the relevant provisions are not repealed, close to £100 million will have gone to the Government from our city over the 10-year period from when those provisions first started to bite to 2012. We can imagine what could have been done with that in Portsmouth. Instead, we are having to put council rents up, to help fund the subsidy rip-off that we as a city face and pay the Government. Robbing the least able people — taking away money that could not only refurbish their properties sooner, but put in place the sort of housing that we desperately need — is notoriously bad politics... My local authority contacted the Government and asked questions about how the formula is worked out, but was told, “It’s very complicated.” We know that it is complicated—that is why we had to ask. We were at least entitled to a sensible answer from the very people who are mugging citizens in Portsmouth, year by year, to take that money.”

Mike added: “Many of the people whom I represent… want somewhere decent to live. The Government have failed miserably, not just over the past 18 months but over the past 10 years. And the Tories are not blameless either.”

Speaking after the debate, Mike criticised the MP for Portsmouth North, Sarah McCarthy-Fry who voted against the new amendment and David Willetts, the Conservative MP for Havant who abstained. Mike said: “There are a large number of council tenants both in Havant and in North Portsmouth – those that live there will be very disappointed that their MPs did not back council housing in Parliament.”