Simon Hughes responds to David Cameron on council house policy: “it is not a Liberal Democrat policy, it is not a coalition policy, it was not in the election manifesto of either party, it was not in the coalition agreement.”
Speakers Martha Kearney Simon Hughes
Thank heavens for Simon, that’s all I can say.
SH: Council house allocation has always been controversial and it’s very important that if we’re going to debate any changes to the fundamental issue which is that if you’re given the tenancy and you pass the probationary period, you have it for life, then we do it very sensitively and carefully and mindful of all the difficulties. The fundamental reason why council property is so desirable is because you have security. You know that you can have affordable housing for the rest of your life and for people in many walks of life, out of work, retired, on low incomes, that’s fundamentally important.
MK: But at the moment, given that I mean this time of financial constraint so it may be a while before we get a big influx of new houses, if someone stays in a larger property when they don’t need it they’re denying it to somebody else who might really be in need of it because they’ve got young children, they need more space?
SH: My experience is that if you engage with those people in good time, you engage their families, you talk about what the options are, you explain that they can have somewhere that would be smaller, easier to manage, less expensive – people will normally be persuaded to move. The question is do you make it compulsory to move. And the danger then again is you start breaking up communities. One of the great things abut council property is, or secure tenancies, is that it keeps communities together, keeps families together. It allows, just as you would if you have your home when you pass away or I pass away we can pass it on to our relatives so there is a great benefit in being able to say, this is my family home and my daughter, who has lived with me all my life and cared for me in my old age should be able to continue in the same home when I go and she tackles over. So we’ve got to be sensitive about the whole set of issues and remember that suddenly proposing, or suddenly floating an idea is not any more than that. It’s not a policy, it’s not been agreed, it’s not come to the coalition for formal discussion but floating an idea that we should go to limited fixed-term tenancies would change the whole nature of public sector housing in England and, if we’re going to even look at that we need to have a debate involving everybody carefully and thoughtfully and listening above all to the views of the people who arte the council tenants of today and maybe the council tenants of tomorrow.
MK: So what do you think about the prime minister floating such an important idea without getting agreement from the coalition. How’s that going to go down in your party?
SH: Well, prime ministers are entitled to float any ideas they like but we just have to be clear it is not a Liberal Democrat policy, it is not a coalition policy, it was not in the election manifesto of either party, it was not in the coalition agreement. So the message just has to get out, this is an idea floated by the prime minister, if he wants to pursue it then there are the proper channels to do so. We’re very happy to have the discussion. The Labour Party floated this idea before; they fairly quickly withdrew it because they saw the pitfalls. I’m not against radical ideas coming from progressive prime ministers but it’s no more than that, it’s a prime ministerial idea, it has no more validity yet and I think our party would need a lot of persuading that it has merit or could work and that’s something that clearly if he wants us to talk about we’re happy to talk about.