Clegg: Tories Blocked Social Housing As It Produced Labour Votes

David Cameron opposed increased funding for social housing in the last parliament because it would “produce more Labour voters”, Nick Clegg has claimed. The former deputy prime minister said both the prime minister and the chancellor privately rejected Liberal Democrat calls for more money for social housebuilding under the coalition government. Mr Clegg gave his account of his attempt to allocate more money for social housing: “When the Lib Dems pushed repeatedly in the last parliament for money to build social housing, the prime minister and chancellor rebuffed them with the stark message: ‘All it does is produce more Labour voters.’” Downing Street did not deny that the comments were made. Read more on the Independent website.

Clegg Must Put His Money Where His Mouth Is and Scrap Bedroom Tax

Labour will this week launch a new bid to scrap the Bedroom Tax – and are challenging Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg to help them. Senior Lib Dem Danny Alexander recently announced the party wants to persuade the Tories to axe the hated levy before next year’s election. But Shadow Work Secretary Rachel Reeves said they should work with Labour to end it now. She said: “Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander need to put their money where their mouth is.” Labour will back a Private Member’s Bill by Lib Dem MP Andrew George to axe the tax for anyone who can’t be found a smaller home. This should ensure the Bill goes to its next stage, when Labour MPs will try to amend it so they can scrap the tax altogether. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

Bedroom Tax Is Top of List of Complaints in Clegg's Constituency

The first thing you see when you walk on to Liberty Hill in the Sheffield suburb of Stannington is a static CCTV camera. It keeps an eye on a cluster of social housing that residents say their MP Nick Clegg has never visited. His constituency of Sheffield Hallam is one of the country’s most well-off. It has only 1.5% unemployment. The CCTV is to counter anti-social behaviour. Yet in Stannington, residents’ concerns are not about each other but about Mr Clegg’s government. The hated Bedroom Tax is top of their list of complaints. There are 1,700 people in Sheffield Hallam hit by it. And because of its high concentration of council houses most are in Stannington. Clegg’s abrupt U-turn on the hated “spare-room subsidy” as his Government would have us call it has not gone down well here. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

Clegg 'Spineless' On Bedroom Tax, Suggests Tory Chairman

Nick Clegg is “spineless” after announcing he is opposed to the so-called bedroom tax, Grant Shapps has suggested. The Liberal Democrats “suddenly changed their minds” on the policy, the Conservative Party chairman said, becoming the first Tory Cabinet minister to publicly condemn his Coalition partners over the u-turn.  Mr Shapps said: “People will come to their own conclusions when they see parties u-turn on policies they’ve stood up for in the past. I would have thought the Liberal Democrats with tuitions fees would have learnt that. Them voting for that, never in private or in public arguing against it, then suddenly u-turning on it, people will come to their own conclusions.” Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Bedroom Tax Commons Vote To Be Forced Through

Labour aims to make Nick Clegg put government money where his mouth is and scrap the Bedroom Tax. Ed Miliband plans to force a Commons vote in the autumn on abolishing the hated charge. Last week the Liberal Democrats called for a major overhaul of the levy they had previously supported . A Labour motion for abolition after the 2013 summer recess was defeated by 252 to 226 votes because of coalition support. But if the Deputy PM now gets his MPs to vote with Labour – the housing benefit cut would have to be abolished. Read more on the Sunday People website.

Quit If You're Unhappy, Tories Tell Clegg as He Ditches 'Bedroom Tax'

After marching in step with George Osborne’s austerity programme for four years, Nick Clegg announced he now opposes the so-called bedroom tax. The policy will be radically watered down in the next Liberal Democrat manifesto, meaning claimants only have their housing benefit docked if they refuse to move to a smaller house. Senior Conservatives were angered and amused by the move, and said Mr Clegg is showing "remarkable contempt" for the principle of collective responsibility that means Cabinet ministers must defend government policies in public. In further attacks on his Coalition partners, Mr Clegg said the “headbangers have won” in Mr Cameron’s reshuffle after a number of eurosceptics were promoted. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Bedroom Tax Must Be Axed Says Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg will set the Lib Dems on a major collision course with the Tories over his plea to axe the hated Bedroom Tax. The Deputy PM has finally agreed the crippling penalties are battering the poorest in society and will push for change before next year’s general election. But if Mr Clegg cannot persuade his heartless Coalition partners the Bedroom Tax is a disastrous flop before Britain goes to the polls, he will make ditching it a Lib Dem manifesto pledge. The shock U-turn came after Department for Work and Pensions analysis found the tax – brought in to cut benefits to households that have spare rooms – has failed. Figures showed nearly 60% of the 550,000 tenants affected were in rent arrears and only one in 20 had been able to move to a smaller home. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

Clegg Promises to 'Break Taboo' On State Support for Housing

State money should be used to support construction by councils and housing associations, the deputy prime minister has said.  In an interview yesterday, where he outlined the Liberal Democrat’s position on the economy, Nick Clegg said: ‘Let’s break the taboo, certainly that exists in the Conservative party, of doing the necessary to build the houses we need. This is now emerging as one of the big long-term structural problems with the economy. Not only is it unfair because it prices young people out of the market altogether, it’s actually a threat to the systemic stability of our financial system.’ The deputy prime minister said he would use state funding to build 300,000 homes a year. Read more on the Bloomberg website.

Conservatives Risk Fresh Financial Volatility amid Housing Crisis

The Conservatives are sowing the seeds of a new financial crisis through their failure to tackle the housing problem, Nick Clegg has said as he calls for the "muscle of the state" to be used to help build up to 300,000 homes a year.  In an attack on the Treasury and the CLG, the deputy prime minister accused the Tories of having an ideological objection to intervening in the housing market to build more homes. Clegg made the comments as he came under pressure to change strategy and swing to the left after poor European and local election results. He said Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, and Christine Lagarde, the director of the International Monetary Fund, were right to warn about the need for more housing in the UK. The Conservatives' failure to invest in housing was "unfair and economically unsustainable" and would create the seeds of the next financial crisis, he said. Watch a video (2 mins 40 secs) of the speech on the LibDem website. 

Letting Agents 'Will Have To Publish Their Fees in Full'

The government has said letting agents in England face a new obligation to display full details of their fees both on their websites and in their offices. At Deputy PM Nick Clegg's Commons question session, the Lib Dem leader faced calls from Labour's Harriet Harman to back her party's bid to ban agents from charging fees to tenants. He said there were "virtues" in the opposition's push for longer tenancies. But he warned that the fee ban could increase rents in the long run. Read more on the BBC website.

New Garden Cities Not Required To Include Low-Cost Homes

A Tory planning minister has admitted that the coalition's new wave of garden cities would not have to contain a single affordable home, despite Nick Clegg's claims that they would offer low-cost accommodation and help solve the UK's housing crisis. Asked by Labour whether the first garden city in Ebbsfleet would contain low-cost homes, Nick Boles, a Conservative minister, said the government would "not impose a particular level of affordable housing for housing schemes". "Unrealistic Section 106 agreements [which specify how many affordable homes should be built] result in no development, no regeneration and no community benefits," he added. Read more on the Guardian website.

Clegg to Promise 45,000 Homes across Three Garden Cities

The government will pledge to build up to three new garden cities with at least 15,000 homes each. Councils will be invited to bid to build the developments from an existing £2.4bn government fund, made available up to 2020.  Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will unveil the policy and publish a prospectus inviting bids from councils. Government officials said the developments would not be imposed on communities and must have local support, full backing from councils, good transport links and be commercially viable. The government plans to work with the two or three areas that submit the strongest expressions of interest to help them develop their proposals, including with planning and design. Read more on the Building website.

Lib Dem President Withdraws Party's Support for Bedroom Tax

The Liberal Democrat president, Tim Farron, has withdrawn his party's support for the bedroom tax, saying it has caused "huge social problems". In a speech that distanced the Lib Dems from the controversial tax, Farron condemned what he describes as attacks on the poorer members of society. "The onslaught of divisive rhetoric that demonises the poor can never help us to create a fairer society," he told the Centre for Social Justice. "The bedroom tax causes huge social problems and distorts the market – we as a party cannot support this." In the autumn the Liberal Democrat conference agreed to review the bedroom tax, and the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has said that he would look at giving councils greater flexibility in providing discretionary support for specific hardship cases.  Farron's pledge to oppose the bedroom tax consciously goes beyond existing Liberal Democrat and coalition policy. Read more on the Guardian website.

Lib Dems Propose To Overhaul Bedroom Tax

The Liberal Democrats will pledge to scrap the bedroom tax for all but those who refuse a suitable and reasonable offer of alternative accommodation, Inside Housing has learned. The reform is the party’s preferred option for its 2015 manifesto, with leader Nick Clegg planning to announce it at a later stage. The move would represent a change of direction for the Liberal Democrats, which voted down a similar amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill in February 2012, after it had been introduced by the House of Lords. Read more on Inside Housing.

Clegg's Promise of Bedroom Tax Review Is a 'Sham,' Says Harman

Nick Clegg’s promise of a review into the controversial so-called 'bedroom tax' was labelled a “sham” by Harriet Harman after it emerged it will not be complete until late 2015 and will not hear from the public.  Last month the Deputy Prime Minister told Ms Harman in the Commons that a review would be carried out into the 'bedroom tax', saying: “To be honest, lots of wildly different figures have been cited about the policy’s impact. That is why we are commissioning independent research to understand its impact. I suspect that it varies enormously between one part of the country and another, and one local authority and another.”  Read more on the Independent website.

Labour Plans to Challenge Lib Dem MPs with Bedroom Tax Vote

Next Tuesday (12 November), Labour will hold a vote on its pledge to scrap the bedroom tax. For Lib Dem MPs, this represents a particular challenge. As evidence has grown of the harm inflicted by the policy, Clegg's party has become increasingly uncomfortable with the government's stance. At its recent conference, the party voted in favour of a motion calling for "an immediate evaluation of the impact of the policy" and for "a redrafting of clear housing needs guidelines in association with those representing vulnerable groups including the disabled, elderly and children." Read more on the New Statesman website.

Housing Benefit Review Is In Progress

A government commissioned review by independent firms has begun into the impact of housing benefit changes.  Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it was "responsible" to check on how any new policy worked in practice.  With a "big policy like this, it'd be irresponsible for a government to say 'oh well, it's happening' and not work out or try and assess how it's actually being implemented on the ground", he said. The initial findings will be available in 2014 and the final report in late 2015, according to the DWP.  Read more on the BBC website.

Clegg Warns Plug Could Be Pulled On Help to Buy

The deputy prime minister said the Bank of England would closely monitor the Help to Buy scheme and, if it doesn't prove effective, it could be "stopped altogether". Speaking at an event in east London, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg dismissed concerns that the scheme would make the problem of the "overheated" property market in the capital worse. However, he said the government needed to be "vigilant" and ensure the scheme did not provide "inappropriate stimulation to the housing market". Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Benefits Crackdown ‘Will Hit Single Parents Hardest’

Single parents would be the biggest losers under David Cameron’s plan to deny under-25s an automatic right to state benefits. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is worried that parents could be affected by proposals to restrict housing benefit for the more than one million “Neets” – young people not in education, employment or training – under a strategy announced by the Prime Minister.  Official figures show that 166,000 (46 per cent) of those under 25 who claim housing benefit are lone parents. So are 8,000 (2 per cent) of those claiming jobseeker’s allowance, which could also be limited under the “learn or earn” strategy being drawn up by the Downing Street Policy Unit. Read more on the Housing News website.

Lib Dem Members Demand Review of Bedroom Tax

Nick Clegg has suffered a fresh blow after Lib Dem activists demanded an immediate review of the Government’s hated Bedroom Tax. Lib Dem members have overwhelmingly backed a motion slamming the levy for “discriminating against the most vulnerable in society”.  The rebel motion, which is now official Lib Dem policy, states that the tax hits the poor and disabled hardest and fails to take into account that there are too few homes for victims to move into.  It said in large parts of the country there were not enough smaller homes to make downsizing locally “a viable option”. It added that ministers had shown “a lack of appreciation of the housing requirements of children and adults with disabilities and care needs”. It also said there had not been enough cash put aside to help the victims of the raid. Read more on the Mirror website.