The next debate on the bill is the first week that MPs are back, on Tuesday 5 January. So we need to hit the ground running in 2016. Join the rolling demonstration outside parliament from 12 noon, followed by a Kill the Housing Bill campaign meeting inside from 5pm (allow 30 mins to get through security).
The Kill the Housing Bill campaign also has an organising meeting on Saturday 16 January, from 11am to 1pm at the Unite offices at 128 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8TN.
If you can’t make it to either of these events (and even if you can), you can also contact your MP and demand that they don’t let it through. You can find a template letter here.
Let’s stop this attack on homes for all!
The Housing and Planning Bill is one of the most dangerous and far-reaching pieces of legislation passed in this country in a long time, yet its true impact has been unreported in the mainstream press and is largely unknown to the general public.
If passed, the Bill will:
1) Replace the obligation to build homes for social rent with a duty to build starter homes capped at £450,000 in London and £250,000 in England;
2) Extend the Right to Buy to housing associations without the obligation to replace them, further depleting the number of hoems for social rent;
3) Compel local authorities to sell ‘high value’ housing, either transfering public housing into private hands or freeing up the land it sits on for property developers;
4) Force so-called ‘high income’ tenants with a total household income over £30,000 (£40,000 in London) to pay market rents;
5) Grant planning permission in principle for housing estates designated as such to be redeveloped as ‘brownfield land’;
6) Phase out secure tenancies and their succession to children and replace them with 2-5 year tenancies – with such tenancies also being applicable to tenants who have been ‘decanted’ for the purposes of redevelopment.