Investment And Choice For Council Tenants

EDM number 430 in 2003-04, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 14/01/2004.

That this House calls on the Government to make the choice for council tenants more genuine by including the option, which surveys show tenants prefer, of staying with the council and improving homes through direct investment, instead of restricting choice to stock transfer, PFI finance or arm's length management organisations; recommends that the Government ends the pressure exerted on councils and tenants through inadequate funding of council housing by giving councils a level playing field with housing associations and arm's length management organisations in respect of investment, funding and the ability to borrow; believes that the present ideological obsession with pressuring councils to get rid of the housing stock they have built up over the years to serve the needs of local people is doctrinaire, inefficient, and more expensive than council control, because council housing can pay for itself but privatisation requires subsidy through council, housing revenue account and general funds, as well as huge debt write-offs, gap funding, private finance credits and substantial fees for consultants, lawyers, surveyors and advisers, estimated by the Audit Office at ú435 per house, and higher spending on housing benefits, all without producing any real increase in tenant satisfaction; and therefore calls on the Government to end the discrimination against council housing, enabling councils to improve and build new council housing which tenants prefer and most councils want.

This motion has been signed by a total of 130 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.