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Read Austins response to John Prescotts decison to disregard the "fourth option".
The Rt Hon John Prescott MP
Deputy Prime Minister
ODPM
26 Whitehall
London SW1A 2WH
Dear John
Your letter dated 28 October, emailed to me just in time for our conference at Congress House organised by Defend Council Housing and the Council Housing Group of MPs, was greeted by the 350 tenants, MPs and union leaders who attended as “outrageous”.
It is, of course. As your long-term supporter and, I hope, friend, I think it would have been better from your point of view not to have rubbished the conference decision in this way but I do understand your position. You`ve got to bluff/force/con all councils into submitting privatisation plans by July next year and can`t, therefore, allow any chink in your armour, any possibility of a fourth option or rationality. It`s difficult to persevere in that stance as the election approaches because it divides the Party, undermines councils and alienates tenants, particularly those who`ve already voted against privatisation or ALMO, and are now being told they`ll be left to rot in hell as a consequence. Election winning all this ain`t, but I do understand the calls of duty if not the reasons why it`s being done so menacingly.
This leaves the little matter of the conference decision which you have to defer to. You promised to put local authorities on a level playing field and look at an enquiry into financing to make the playing field more level. You told delegates that you were “near agreement” in what were ongoing discussions. Your Housing Minister went round the fringe afterwards assuring delegates that there would be an enquiry and that “we are continuing the review as we promised to do…We are continuing a negotiation, a discussion with the various interested parties”. All this can`t be dismissed as it is in your letter.
It`s time to meet and discuss this situation and see what can be done. We are sending you the resolution from our Conference and I`ve already written on behalf of the Council Housing Group about meeting you, but I`d appreciate a personal meeting, man to mouse, without your advisers or mine because I can`t honestly understand what you`re about when this is such a major distraction from the huge job that`s necessary on housing.
The points at issue are:
(1) ALMOS. This is your own half-way house. It is failing. It does not take borrowing off the public ledger. It is expensive. Treasury regards it as an unnecessary ideological gesture. It is clearly pointless to concede ALMOs to best performing councils only. If they are performing that well, why not let the councils responsible continue to run and control their own council housing? Why bother with ALMOs except for ideology?
(2) Privatisation is expensive. You are wasting millions to give away billions of public assets. Council housing could finance itself if the Government didn`t take so much from HRAs to pay off historic debt, something it doesn`t do in, for instance, the Health Service, and something which it is happy to wipe for Large Scale Voluntary Transfers. We`ve sent you our figures. We have had an inaccurate reply from Keith Hill which we are rebutting (you`ll shortly receive this). Your case doesn`t stand up and you might like to confirm that Treasury considers that ours does. Ours will allow councils to continue to run council housing as the tenants want or to bring in private finance (as you prefer) but we`d leave that up to the tenants making a genuine choice between the four available options. We are unable to understand why a Government which believes in choice does not allow tenants to make it.
(3) A genuine review requires transfers to both RSLs and ALMOs to be put on hold. You can`t force tenants to choose between alternatives you want which will be changed for others. To stick obstinately to the process is a gigantic game of bluff played at the expense of the tenants.
(4) Your Community Housing Task Force is a publicly financed privatisation agency spending public money on a job which should be financed by the private sector which benefits from it. If your real concern is to improve council housing, not just pass enormous benefits to the private financial sector, you need to set up a council housing improvement force to advise badly performing councils on how to improve their stock. It is totally unrealistic to expect councils to submit plans without such help and advice and totally shaming that the taxpayer should be financing a campaign for the enrichment of the financial sector which benefits so substantially from an almost free gift of public assets at a time of rising house prices. The present task force makes recommendations, suggests partners, brings councils and private sector together. It`s legitimate to worry about the possibilities of corruption this opens up. Are you?
We need more council housing and councils need the ability to serve the housing needs of their areas and the social housing needs of their tenants. Instead of providing it you are disguising a unique Labour failure to build (both public and private) by embarking on a programme of changing the ownership of the inadequate number of deckchairs on the Titanic to benefit private financial interests and an inadequately regulated RSL sector, who are doing so well out of a public asset. You are also failing to mobilise councils in the big social housing effort that needs to be made.
Councils have lovingly developed their housing assets over the years to serve the interests and improve the wellbeing of their own people. They mainly want to get on with that job. Why not bring them into the big job you are belatedly taking on, it rather than bashing them? As your friend and long-term supporter, I`m anxious that this should not be your legacy to history. You are better than that and deserve a better monument.
Yours sincerely
AUSTIN MITCHELL |
