Campaigning for a fair deal for Council tenants

It may not have generated many headlines but the Labour administration's decision to put the rent up on Reading Borough Council properties will hit many Council tenants - namely those who are not in receipt of benefits and who account around 30% of all RBC tenants (there are around 7,300 Council tenants in total).

As Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Panel in Reading I been actively monitoring the impact on the recession on residents in Reading over the past year to ensure people who needed help were getting it from the Council, and a couple of sad things this study revealed was the increase over the past year of number of people accessing RBC debt services, and claiming financial support to help them meet their housing costs.

As I said in a Council meeting when the issue of the proposed rent increase was debated a few weeks ago - it is with a heavy heart that as a political Party we, the Lib Dems, lend our support to plans to increase charges for some of Reading's poorest families many of them just living above or on the poverty line.

But thanks to the way that successive Conservative and Labour governments have messed up housing finance RBC is left between a rock and a hard place when it comes to securing the future of council-owned housing stock. The Council is forced to charge tenants more because government keeps taking money away from councils like Reading to spend elsewhere.

We do not and should not point the finger of blame at Council officers who are struggle to balance the books in the Council's housing department: the failure to reform our arcane system of housing finance is a failure of this Labour government over a period of years.

The same Labour government which has abandoned its commitment to fairness and demonstrated time and time again through its own policies that is is not on the side of the poorest, including Council tenants.

As Nick Clegg has said repeatedly: the only Party that is genuinely committed to fairness for all is the Liberal Democrats.

The way council housing is currently funded is unfair on councils but more importantly it's unfair on council tenants. The way that council housing finance is centrally controlled by government makes it impossible for councils to have any real power or autonomy over their own spending and by extension limits this limits power they have to set rents and manage their own housing stock.

Alongside my Lib Dem colleagues on Reading Borough Council, as housing spokesperson I have campaigned for many years for an end to the system of so-called 'negative subsidy' - an unfair tax on Council tenants.

The sad fact of the matter is that were it not for the millions of pounds worth of rent RBC is forced to pay back to the Treasury every year there would be no need for the Council to increase the rent.

The Lib Dems would like to see the cash raised by local councils through rent spent on improving council housing stock in local areas and on building more new council houses - not subsidising government spending elsewhere.

This time last year we won backing from Labour and Tory councillors in Reading for our campaign for action to reform our rotten council housing finance system.

And nationally reform is on its way, apparently, but the government's 'change of heart' will not bring change soon enough for tenants here in Reading or anywhere else. A consultation was launched by Labour nationally but nothing will happen this side of the General Election or this financial year. So the rent has gone up.

Service Charges

Problems for tenants do not end with rent increases. Thanks to the way Labour has structured finance nationally RBC has been forced to start charging tenants extra for services they used to receive as part of their rent.

I succeeded in getting officers to delay plans to introduce charges after the Labour administration got itself into a bit of muddle just before Christmas in a botched consultation. The new charges for lighting in communal areas are set to come in in April.

Several tenants contacted me recently angry about Labour's charging plans. One tenant wrote:

"It is clear to me that these charges represent just another tax on the hardworking families that the Labour government - and Labour-dominated Reading Borough Council claim they want to help."

A report going to Cabinet next week reveals 55 tenants have written to RBC saying they oppose the plans to vary tenancies to allow Labour to introduce service charges.

Higher rent and service charges will make life even more difficult for tenants who are in arrears. RBC plans to send out leaflets with all the rent increase letters to encourage tenants to "contact the rent service if they experience any problems paying their rent."

I challenged the Labour Lead Member for Housing, Cllr Deborah Edwards, at the last full Council meeting about the way the Labour-administration treats tenants who fall behind with rent payments.

Does threatening tenants who fail to pay their rent on time constitute support, I asked. I quoted from an incredibly crass article which featured in the Council Tax Payer funded December edition of Housing News entitled "Rent comes first: Don't be Ho, Ho, Homeless this Christmas"

Cllr Edwards failed to apologise publicly to tenants for the article despite my requests for her to do so, choosing instead to attack those tenants who contacted me who were deeply offended by the article for being "thin-skinned".

Is this what people expected when they voted Labour all those years ago? On seeing the article one tenant commented to me:

"This is the sort of thing you might expect from a Tory Council, not a Labour one!

But as Sarah Teather, Lib Dem Housing Spokesperson pointed out in her speech at our Party's Federal Conference last year the Conservatives have no plans to do things differently if they form the next government:

"Blue-red, red-blue, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown what’s the difference?

That’s why the Tories won’t change any Labour policies – because they’re all Tory policies in the first place."

But it's not all doom and gloom. I'm really pleased to see the Labour-administration have pledged the continuation and extension of the so-called Decent Neighbourhoods Fund in Reading over the next financial year. Investment in the infrastructure of housing estates in Reading is something I have actively championed and campaigned for over a period of years.

To the frustration of tenants and residents, Labour in Reading have taken their eye off the ball and allowed estates to become rundown and neglected in their headlong rush to chase 'Decent Homes' targets. Decent homes are important but so are our neighbourhoods: people want to live in clean and safe areas - and I think they have a right to expect that their Council will work to keep them that way.

I have seen the tangible benefits that investment in estate areas can bring communities on an estate in my own ward - Hexham Road. As PPC for Reading West I will campaign for estates across West Reading and West Berkshire to benefit from the same investment, and the same improved quality of life for the benefit of residents who live on them.

Lib Dems' practical plan to cut crime vs Tory spin

Earlier this week the Conservative Party made the headlines for all the wrong reasons as they were roundly criticised for misrepresenting figures on violent crime for political gain.

I caught a bit of Chris Grayling, Shadow Home Secretary being interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme and I cringed. He said something about how if you talked to people on the streets they would confirm crime had risen - hardly very scientific! The point there is that what people feel about crime is based on people's perceptions not hard data: and I would agree that fear of crime is an issue.

Let's not forget the key point that Louise Casey reminded me of recently: 80% of crime goes unreported. So we need to be very careful about how we use and refer to crime data.

If you've been reading this blog and my ward blog you'll know that one of my big issues is the need to radically improve public confidence in the Police and the Council's ability to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour.

I have actively campaigned for a more effective approach in Reading which involves more regular communication and a better dialogue from the authorities with the public.

Political stunts like the one launched by the Conservatives are highly damaging to public confidence (which is already low when it comes to crime) and I was pleased to see the response by the Chairman of the independent UK Statistics Authority which pointed out the folly of a politician attacking official statistics.

The British Crime Survey has been around since 1981 and although it may not be perfect I would suggest it is more credible than a certain political party when it comes to crime figures!

In stark contrast to the crude politicking of the Conservatives on crime this week (which was nothing other than damaging both to public confidence and to the Conservative Party's standing), I was really pleased to see Nick Clegg and Lib Dem Shadow Home Affairs Spokesman Chris Huhne set out the practical ways in which a Lib Dem government would make communities feel safer.

It's simple: Lib Dems would scrap ID Cards and spend the money on 3,000 more Police on the beat.

The plans called 'Safer Streets - more and better Police' include proposals to publish detection rates as well as ward level crime data.

It chimes in very much with the way we have campaigned to get crime tackled more effectively here in Reading and I think these proposals would be a very positive step towards making people feel safer and to improve public confidence in Policing.

Research published by the Lib Dems at the same time as the policy revealed:

• Police numbers have fallen in 18 out of the 43 police forces (42%) in England and Wales since 2005. Two thirds of these police authorities are currently controlled by the Tories and one third by Labour
• The new officers proposed under Liberal Democrat plans could be expected to make an additional 27,500 arrests and solve more than 24,500 extra crimes each year in England and Wales alone

Contrast these pledges with the actions of Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson this week - who campaigned on a crime ticket then announced he would be cutting 450 Police officers in the capital!

I look forward to finding out what local people in Reading think about these proposals when I talk to them on the doorstep over the coming weeks.

As a local councillor I have heard many complaints from residents over the years that there are not enough Police in their areas - right across Town.

I'm really pleased as a parliamentary candidate that I will be able to say hand on heart that I am standing for a Party ready and able to offer genuinely practical solutions to cutting crime.

Simply scaremongering as the Conservatives have done this week will do nothing other than damage what little confidence people have in the ability of the Police and councils to tackle crime.

Campaigning for decent homes for all

Housing - lack of good quality, affordable housing - is something that I care deeply about as anyone who knows me will tell you.

I spend a lot of time on housing casework because I think it's some of the most important work I do as a local councillor and because I have seen the difference better housing makes to people.

I feel good about campaigning for better housing and the more I do the more I realise the amount of work that needs to be done before everyone in Reading is able to live in what you and I would consider decent accommodation.

Good housing can transform someone's life chances - and bad housing can cause irreparable damage too.

A good home - a place where you can be safe, happy and comfortable - something many of us take for granted - is something I think everyone in Reading and everyone in Britain should have a basic right to.

I have been Lib Dem housing spokesperson on Reading Borough Council since 2006 and I have campaigned extensively for better standards in both the private rented sector and social housing (mainly council-owned properties) in Reading.

People who have been along to Council meetings where housing is on the agenda will have grown used to hearing me getting a bit steamed up about housing issues in Reading.

No doubt Labour and Tory councillors alike are sick of me banging on about bad housing (and Labour's bad track record) but I will continue to go on about this stuff as long as people keep on contacting me with their housing problems and I have breath in my body.

A Labour councillor accused me last week in Council of changing my tune since I've become a PPC.

As if!!

I haven't suddenly got worked up about housing because I'm now a prospective parliamentary candidate: I've been bothered about bad housing in Reading ever since I was first elected.

Labour-run RBC has neglected all types of housing over the years - this is something which surprised me when I first began campaigning because I thought Labour politicians were supposed to care about affordable housing.

Labour councillors have allowed developers to fill the Town centre with hundreds of executive rabbit-hutches but they have failed to build the type of housing local people actually need.

But housing is not just about bricks and mortar: neighbourhoods matter too, and I've campaigned long and hard to get estates made cleaner, greener and safer.

Why should the quality of life for residents living on estates be any less good than other residents? I think everyone has a right to live in a decent neighbourhood.

Labour's pursuit of the nationally-driven "decent homes" agenda has meant that council estates in many parts of Reading have been allowed to become rundown and blighted by anti-social behaviour. This is a direct result of a serious lack of investment in the right things over a period of years.

I persuaded Labour to back my plan for a 'Decent Neighbourhoods Fund' - a pot of money to improve estates in Reading. I've seen the benefits this can bring in my own backyard - on Hexham estate where genuine community-involvement is driving improvement from the ground up (not Labour's failed top-down approach).

I want everyone living on an estate in Reading to see the improvements we have seen on Hexham Road come to their area. The residents of Dee Park have had to wait too long and many tenants in other estates in Reading are still waiting for improvements.

After the millions spent by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair's governments in our name this really isn't good enough.

And its not just estates that have problems in Reading. Areas with large amounts of private rented housing - and HMOs (houses of multiple occupation) also have their fair share of problems - conversions without proper planning permission, overflowing bins, parking issues.

All these things make parts of Reading less appealing places to live. And this should matter to politicians.

I dedicated a large amount of my time and energy last year to getting the Labour-run Council in Reading to focus some effort into the much-neglected private rented housing sector.

The scrutiny review I led was very successful - we won £120,000 worth of investment in improving the sector and got officers to focus on finding solutions to the problems faced by tenants and residents living in parts of town with lots of HMOs.

More recently I campaigned for help for tenants in private rented housing who face eviction due to problems faced by buy-to-let landlords in the recession. I'm pleased to see that this issue is now getting more attention from MPs in Parliament.

For details of the housing campaigns I've run over the past four years check out my ward blog.

Anyway, back to today and I was alarmed by a report published by campaigning charity, Shelter, today which has found concrete evidence that lack of affordable housing in the UK is literally tearing families apart.

Shelter's study found:

- 1.5 million adults saying they are unable to look after their elderly parents because they can’t afford to live near them.

- 1.5 million grandparents say they are missing out on helping take care of their grandchildren because their own children can’t afford to live close by.

- One in ten parents believe their children want to live closer to them but are unable to due to soaring housing costs.

-22 per cent of 18-34 year olds stated that they were still living at home, with 45 per cent of these people blaming high housing costs.

- Over 50% this group reported that developing and maintaining relationships was harder because of living at home with their parents.

I see evidence of this everyday in my ward and across Reading.

So what does the housing crisis look like in Reading in statistics?

Questions I posed last year revealed:

• 5,000 people waiting for Council housing


• Average wait time for a three bed Council/RSL property in Reading: 20 months


• Average wait time for a four bed Council property in Reading: 22 months

Behind these figures are heartbreaking stories of people young and old desperate to get access to better housing for themselves and their families.

I'm not blaming the Council officers, they do their best to help people get further up the ladder but their simply aren't enough houses to go round. The blame for the chronic shortage of social homes to rent being built in Reading lies squarely at the door of the Labour government which has failed to deliver on it's promise of decent homes for all, by failing to allow councils to build enough council houses for their communities.

I am particularly concerned about the number of families living in overcrowded accommodation so I have commissioned a scrutiny review into this particular problem to report back to HHCC Scrutiny Panel soon. I have led a campaign in Reading for more affordable family-sized homes to rent to help reduce the number of families who are currently overcrowded.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the radical Lib Dem plan to turn the thousands of empty homes in Britain into much needed homes to rent for people on low incomes.

I will continue to campaign to keep housing high up the local political agenda in Reading - even if Labour and the Tories would prefer not to talk about it.

I am supporting Inside Housing magazine's House Proud campaign to get housing on the national political agenda at the forthcoming General Election. Please add your name to the petition to ensure that the housing crisis is the focus of all the major parties' attentions in the coming weeks.