Autumn Statement: smoke and mirrors
The measures announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond in the Autumn Statement will do precisely nothing to resolve the housing crisis for the working class. The promise of £1.4bn to build 40,000 ‘affordable homes’ – with an additional £3.15bn for 90,000 in London – is the same old sleight of hand. Firstly, it begs the question: ‘affordable’ for whom? ‘Affordable’, ‘submarket’ and ‘intermediary’ rents are all euphemisms for anything up to 80% of market rents – ie unaffordable for the majority of people in most of Britain. In London so-called ‘intermediate housing’ requires a minimum salary of £57,000 a year. In southeast London, as the 35percent.org campaign has discovered, Southwark Labour Council’s new planning policy for the Old Kent Road ‘regeneration’ now allows developers to decide for themselves what constitutes ‘affordable housing’. Secondly, there have already been massive handouts of government money to private builders to tackle the housing crisis. In the words of economist Paul Mason, this has simply resulted in ‘a glut of luxury apartments and a shortage of homes for ordinary people’.
The Autumn Statement was, unsurprisingly, welcomed by the British Property Federation, as well as by major construction firms and the CBI. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted that at least 13,000 fewer new houses than promised will be built by housing associations over the next year. Meanwhile it is clear that the destruction of working class housing estates will continue apace, with £1.7bn earmarked for private development on public sector land. There was no mention of housing for social rent – and no rowing back on the draconian Overall Benefit Cap, which will slash housing benefits for the poorest sections of the working class and exacerbate homelessness.
Pay more to stay? No way!
Also in the Autumn Statement was the announcement that Pay More to Stay – which would have seen massive rent rises for council tenants in households earning above £31,000 (£40,000 in London) would be withdrawn. The policy was hypocritically touted as ending a housing ‘subsidy’ to better-off council tenants – as if the discounts on Right to Buy and Starter Homes, ‘Help to Buy’ ISAs worth £2.2bn of Treasury money and indeed the billions of pounds handed over to private landlords in housing benefits were not all subsidies to the private sector.
But the combination of angry protests by tenants, coupled with the self-interested reluctance of councils to take on the logistical nightmare and costs of enforcing income data collection from tenants which would bring them no financial benefit, has forced the government to abandon the scheme. Housing associations, however, which keep the extra money, are still poised to implement it.
Brimstone House fights back
Inspired by the Focus E15 campaign, the current residents of the original Focus E15 hostel in east London, now renamed Brimstone House, are also fighting back over unacceptable housing conditions.
The hostel, now owned and managed directly by Newham Labour Council, is being used as a dumping ground by its housing services. Not only are conditions there as appalling as they were when the Focus E15 campaign was launched – damp and vermin-ridden, with inadequate laundry facilities and a regularly broken lift – they are overcrowded to an illegal degree. One woman shares a room with her two teenage children – of opposite sexes; she is reduced to sleeping on the sofa while they share the double bed.
Despite Brimstone House being labelled ‘temporary’ housing limited to a six-week stay, many of the residents have now been there for months or even years. They have been meeting with the Focus E15 campaign to share ideas on how best to take their fight to the council.
Newham Labour Council – still gambling with public money
The Focus E15 campaign continues to fight for decent and affordable housing for all in Newham, east London. In early November, one of the campaign’s regular public meetings was addressed by Joel Benjamin of Debt Resistance UK, who has been investigating Newham Council’s reckless use of so-called LOBO loans. Under these ‘Lender Option Borrower Option’ loans, the rate of interest falls if overall interest rates rise. But, if overall interest rates fall, as they have done so dramatically, then the interest rate on the loan rises (see FRFI 250). Newham Council is the largest LOBO borrower in the country. According to Benjamin, under Labour Mayor Robin Wales, it has racked up £563m in debt, or £1,880 per resident, at punitive interest rates of 7.6%. The council is paying £7m-£13m of public money to the banks every year – and it is its residents who are shouldering the burden, as 80% of all council tax collected is used to finance repayments and frontline services are cut. Last year, the council spent more money on servicing bank debt than on housing.
Cat Wiener
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 254 December 2016/January 2017
