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Labour conference votes for tenant ballots on regeneration
Labour conference delegates have voted unanimously in favour of balloting tenants before estate regeneration projects get the go-ahead.
In a vote yesterday evening, delegates voted on a motion, seen by Inside Housing, outlining a number of housing policies for the Labour Party.
As well as tenant ballots, the conference voted to call on councils “to cease disposing or transferring of public land, council estates and commercial property for the benefit of private sector housing and investment opportunities for the few”.
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Speaking at the debate, John Healey, shadow secretary of state for housing, told the conference: “Things must change, but they won’t change without Labour. We need Labour in government to deliver the big new deal on housing that Jeremy Corbyn and I together launched in Labour’s housing manifesto.”
The vote does not mean this will automatically become Labour policy, as the National Policy Forum will still have the final say.
As well as the national significance of the vote, it acted as a rebuke to Haringey Council over its controversial £2bn development vehicle, which will involve the “transferring of public land, council estates and commercial property”.
Proposing the motion, Haringey councillor Noah Tucker told the conference: “Yes, we can have development vehicles, but they must be 100% council owned.”
I make no apology for wanting to build the new homes that families so desperately need. It requires pragmatism - a focus on ends, not means
— Claire Kober (@ClaireKober)I make no apology for wanting to build the new homes that families so desperately need. It requires pragmatism - a focus on ends, not means
— Claire Kober (@ClaireKober) September 26, 2017
A motion on Grenfell Tower was also passed unanimously, calling on a future Labour government to lift the Housing Revenue Account cap on council borrowing and demanding that the Grenfell Tower Inquiry examines the role that deregulation by past governments since the 1980s played in the spread of the fire.
The motion, proposed by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), also insists that local authorities and housing associations be required to have “technical expertise in place to ensure quality control”.
Speaking in favour of the motion, Matt Wrack, general secretary of the FBU, said: “If it’s a real public inquiry, government ministers will be summoned to answer questions about their role in this.”
