Secrets and Lies: Privatisation is not the answer to the housing crisis in Tower Hamlets

Secrets and Lies: Privatisation is not the answer to the housing crisis in Tower Hamlets
By Cllr Abjol Miah

Every day RESPECT councillors talk to yet more desperate constituents suffering because of poor housing. We live in an area with immense wealth in the City and Canary Wharf, in the fourth richest country in the world. Yet we have the worst overcrowding in Britain and over 20,000 people on the waiting list for re-housing.
Conditions on some of our estates are appalling, and tenants find it difficult to get the service and repairs they are entitled to. The New Labour Council says the only way things can improve is if council tenants vote to transfer to a housing association, with loss of security and rights and moving to the private sector. This is blackmail. The Council says ‘there’s no money’, but we know the Council and the government are taking money out of housing to finance other projects. Tower Hamlets is sitting on at least £45 million that could be spent on council housing this year alone!
RESPECT opposes stock-transfer because it threatens tenants’ rights, and puts our estates in the hands of £multi-million national organisations. Council housing costs less to build, manage and maintain, It is more secure and uniquely accountable because tenants and leaseholders elect their landlord. It is the only way to protect the homes and land that belong to the people, now and in the future.
There has been under-investment in housing for decades, but it is shocking to realise that a so-called Labour government has actually spent less on ‘social’ housing than the Tory government before it. New Labour has carried on where Margaret Thatcher left off, aiming to privatise 200,000 council homes a year.

The pro-transfer lobby always say ‘it’s not privatisation’, but Housing Associations (now also called Registered Social Landlords or RSLs) are fundamentally different to the Council. They are run as private businesses, with no direct accountability to tenants. Council tenants can vote for their landlord every four years at the ballot box. If you vote to transfer to a housing association, it will be the last time you ever have a vote on the future of your housing.

Housing associations raise extra money to spend on estates by borrowing it from City financial institutions, but like any loan, it has to be repaid. They borrow the money – at higher rates than councils pay - by using your home as security. What if the housing association hits financial trouble? Housing associations are being swallowed up by bigger ones in mergers and takeovers. Have you ever heard of a Council going bust? One thing is certain, if a Housing Association or RSL can’t repay its loans, rents and charges will go up – and their rents are already higher than council rents, with the gap getting bigger.

The RSLs try to present themselves as cosy, local, community organisations, but this is another deception. Most of them are based in fancy corporate offices, with senior managers earning six figure salaries. For example, Sanctuary HA – who want to take over the Ocean estate – are based in Worcester and have homes all over the country. Their Chief Executive is on £150,000 a year. Many are part of much bigger ‘group structures’. Old Ford Housing Trust in Bow are part of Circle 33 Housing Association and Circle 33 is part of an even bigger group called Circle-Anglia. By transferring our homes to this type of organisation, we lose control of our futures.
The pro-transfer lobby is full of vested interests and the old-boys network. Private consultants have already stuffed their pockets with more than £6 million of our money acting as ‘independent’ advisors on transfer. This is money that should have been spent on repairs. Meanwhile the New Labour Council is using stock-transfer as a jobs for the boys scheme. The Chief Executives of Poplar HARCA, East End Homes and Tower Hamlets Community Housing all have four things in common – they used to be senior managers at the Council, they get big pay rises through setting up their new HAs, they are white men and they are members of, or close to, the Labour Party.

Another big lie from the pro-transfer lobby is that RSL tenancies are the same as council tenancies. Apples and mangos are both fruit, but they are not the same! The legal agreements for Council tenants and RSL tenants are significantly different. It is easier to evict an RSL tenant under an Assured Tenancy than a Council tenant under a Secure Tenancy. In fact, if for any reason you go 8 weeks into rent arrears, the Court can automatically order your eviction as an RSL tenant. When they are trying to take over your estate, they tell you they will not use this power, but they have the power and the right in statute to do so, and it has already happened.
The same applies to your rights to hand your tenancy on to your children and your Right to Buy. As with many aspects of privatisation, RESPECT says you need to think about your rights in the future, not just the immediate ‘carrot’ of a new kitchen. Tenants have a right to keep their security AND get improvements done – that’s why you pay rents and charges. The government is committed to bringing all council housing up to a ‘decent’ standard by 2010, so many of the improvements RSLs are promising (e.g. new kitchens and bathrooms), you are entitled to whether you transfer or not.
Of course, the New Labour Council and their friends in the RSLs and housing associations don’t tell you all this – they only want you to hear one side of the story. I have been shocked and angered by the tactics they have used, smearing the people who disagree with them, ripping down posters that give the other side of the argument and denying tenants the right to a free and democratic debate of the issues. What have they got to hide?

New Labour has a vision for the future of our borough that will see thousands of private homes at prices local people can’t afford. After 12 years of a New Labour Council and 9 years of a New Labour government, the average household income in Tower Hamlets is only £15,000, and under £10,000 for 43% of households. Is this New Labour’s new answer to poverty - trying to price these people out of the borough? The Council blatantly ignore the real needs of our community, preferring to look after the property developers and City wizz kids looking to make a fast buck on the back of the Olympics.
On the Ocean estate, for example, they are proposing a transfer plan which would demolish 15 council blocks, build a bare minimum for rent and let rip with over 700 new private luxury homes sold for £300,000 a go. Vital community centres such as Dame Colet and St Dunstans would be flattened to make way for luxury housing. They boast about marketing these to the City and Canary Wharf. Where will our children and the next generation go?
RESPECT is fighting this New Labour betrayal and offering a genuine alternative. We demand an emergency programme of repairs and improvements and of new council house building. Every penny that belongs to housing should be put to use. Our Council needs to fight tooth and nail for the homes we need, with a 50% minimum homes for rent on any new development. We have to join with the 100 councils keeping their housing, with the tenants, unions, MPs and councillors all round the UK demanding direct investment in council housing.
If you are asked to transfer your home to an RSL or housing association, we say ‘’Vote No’. If you want to see a future for working class people, council housing and our community in the East End then come and join RESPECT, the only party that stands for the values that New Labour left behind.