Coalition Housing Plan Is a Distraction

There is no subsidy for council housing because it pays for itself and more, since governments for more than 30 years have creamed off over £70bn to subsidise their spending. This includes most of the money collected from sales through right to buy, and it continues.  Fairness would start to mean something if this money were to be used in building new council housing to relieve the millions on waiting lists. Such housing subsidies that do exist are all aimed at the private housing market.  If tenants are to be charged means-tested rents, this would fuel applications for the right to buy, reducing even further the number of council homes available for rent.  Forcing more and more people into the private housing market, particularly at a time of high unemployment, fuels the need for housing benefit. Cutting benefit levels fuels the risk of more homeless people turning to the council for rehousing. Consultation becomes meaningless when it is based on a false premise. This latest plan is simply a distraction, which will solve nothing and exacerbate the problem of lack of secure, affordable housing.  Read more of this letter on the Guardian website.