Party Lines: November 22nd

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Shadow housing minister Alison Seabeck was on Radio 5 this morning, and reacted to new government housing proposals that could see social housing tenants forced out of their homes if they get a pay rise:

“It’s an absolute recipe for disaster and chaos within the social housing sector”

“They are putting this alongside a range of other policies which are going to put huge pressure both on social housing and private rented….It’s hugely bureaucratic, you’re going to have to constantly monitor people’s incomes.”

Karen Buck was on Sky News at lunchtime, and also took aim at the planned social housing changes, saying that the building of new social housing is part of the answer:

“You simply can’t channel hundreds of thousands or even millions more people into private rented homes and expect in some way to cut the bill for housing benefit. The bill will soar. In fact the reason housing benefit’s gone up is precisely that.”

“If we want people to be able to live in mixed communities in all parts of the country and have an incentive to work because their rents are relatively low and that keeps the housing benefits bill down as well then social housing construction is part of the answer.”

And John Denham told Radio 4 that there are obviously differences of opinion within the shadow cabinet, but that this kind of debate is needed to get Labour to where we need to be – government:

“The idea that the shadow cabinet should be the one part of the Labour party that’s incapable of having a debate, a discussion or people with different views and different emphases is wrong and that won’t get us to where we need to be in the run up to the next general election. We have to make over the next few months and years that all of the big issues are fully debated within the Labour party and fully discussed.”