|
|
 |
| |
David Miliband |
Ministers to meet rebels over homes deadlock
HOUSING ministers have agreed to meet with rebel Labour
MPs and trade unionists in a new effort to break the deadlock
over funding for council homes.
For the first time in a long-running row, ministers David Miliband
and Yvette Cooper have agreed to explore ways in which councils
that want to retain their properties can be helped financially.
They have set-up a working group committee to review the options
for local authorities, a significant development according to
tenant activists in Camden who have demanded direct financial
help for the past two years.
Camden has been starved of the millions of pounds it needs to
bring homes up to national standards after falling foul of the
government’s decision to only provide cash for authorities
that agreed to transfer their homes to outside bodies.
Residents said, in 2003, they would not accept a switch to an
Arms-Length Management Organisation (Almo), a new company with
a board of councillors, tenants and appointees, and instead
wanted to keep the council as their landlords.
Labour backbenchers, including Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank
Dobson, have demanded that the money is sent to Camden in traditional,
direct investment.
The message was hammered home at last September’s party
conference in Brighton
when delegates demanded the choice to retain properties as well
as receiving funding for repairs. Austin Mitchell, a chief campaigner
in the lobby for direct investment, told the New Journal on
Friday that gains had been made since then and the spring conference
in Blackpool earlier this month.
He said: “In the past, John Prescott refused to meet with
us. He wouldn’t have any meetings. There would be no money
from the government unless council stock had to be given over
to the private sector. That is wrong and it is encouraging that
the two new ministers, David Miliband and Yvette Cooper, are
looking at the options again.” |
|
|
|
