Greens call on all parties to withdraw support for selling off council homes
Green Party councillors have criticised Norwich City Council’s Labour administration for lobbying the government to put into place policies which Labour front bench politicians wouldn’t necessarily support. At the council’s meeting in June, leading Labour councillors proposed to lobby Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government to “abolish the Right to Buy policy in favour of expanding the provision of high-quality, energy-efficient, and environmentally sustainable social housing stock providing homes for residents and their families.”
Green councillor, Alex Catt responded to this suggestion by pointing out that Labour MPs such as the Shadow Secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Lisa Nandy appear to support the Right to Buy which was originally suggested by the Labour Party in the late 1950s.
Councillor Catt said:
‘Right to Buy’ is set to lose us 140 council homes every year. Meanwhile, the waiting list is nearly at 4,000 and people who need council homes are stuck paying exorbitant amounts of money to private landlords for poor quality housing. By lobbying the government to abolish this policy when the Labour Party has supported it, local Labour councillors are misleading Norwich residents. My colleague raised this contradiction with Labour councillors at a council meeting, but they failed to take it seriously. It is a national scandal that we have lost two million council homes since 1980, 40% of which are now in the hands of private landlords. We need an end to right to buy, so we can provide quality housing for those who need it. I hope Labour councillors will be lobbying their own party to stand against Right to Buy and to protect social housing.”
Following an amendment from Green councillors, it was agreed that the council would write to the leaders of all parliamentary groups to ask them to support measures to improve the lot of private renters.
Notes:
Further information about the council meeting held on 20th June can be found here: CMIS > Meetings calendar (norwich.gov.uk)