Labour

Commenting on further detail on the content of the government’s white paper on housing, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Housing John Healey MP said:

“The measures announced so far in Theresa May’s long-promised housing white paper are feeble beyond belief.

“After seven years of failure and a thousand housing announcements, the housing crisis is getting worse not better.

“There are 200,000 fewer home-owners, homelessness has doubled, and affordable house-building has slumped to a 24 year low

“Ministers should be setting out clear plans to deal with these problems, but all Theresa May’s Ministers have delivered so far is hot air.

“The government should instead back Labour’s plan to fix the housing crisis – thousands more affordable homes to rent and buy, a charter of renters’ rights and action to end to rough sleeping homelessness.”

ENDS

•         The government’s announcements on housing to date: https://www.gov.uk/government/announcements?keywords=&announcement_filter_option=all&topics%5B%5D=housing&departments%5B%5D=all&world_locations%5B%5D=all&from_date=06%2F05%2F2010&to_date=

•         The government’s record:

– The number of households who own their own home has fallen by 200,000, with the number of under-35 households owning a home down by 344,000.

– There are over 900,000 more households renting from a private landlord than in 2010 including one in four families with dependent children, but rents have risen faster than incomes.  

– Despite 13 separate cuts to housing benefit, including the bedroom tax, the housing benefit bill is £4bn higher each year in cash terms.

– There are 143,000 fewer council homes than in 2010, with only one home in every six sold under the right to buy replaced, despite promises of ‘one for one’ replacement. Measures in the recent housing and planning act are set to mean the loss of 23,503 council houses a year according to the housing charity Shelter.

– According to the Government-commissioned Local Plan Expert Group it is now taking councils almost a year (306 days) longer to adopt vital local plans for housing than in 2009. Among the main reasons are: “a lack of political will and commitment”, “a lack of clarity on key issues”, “too many changes… of policy”, and “a lack of guidance, support and resources”.  We’ve had constant chop and change but no improvement, despite six piece of planning legislation in six years under the Tories.

Commenting on the BBC Panorama programme on issues in Mental Health services in the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trusts, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Member for Mental Health, Barbara Keeley MP said:

“Despite years of Tory Government promises, funding for NHS Mental Health services has not increased but has actually fallen by £150 million.

“At the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust, funding cuts led to frontline community teams being disbanded, loss of experienced staff and the cutting of 136 inpatient psychiatric beds. The Panorama programme showed what can go wrong when patients in crisis cannot be admitted to an inpatient bed.

“It is disturbing that while the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary talk about transforming mental health services, what families actually saw in Norfolk and Suffolk is an absence of support and no beds available during a crisis. It is time for action from Tory Ministers, not warm words which fail patients and their families.”

Angela Rayner MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, commenting on the Government’s announcement regarding the sale of the student loan book, said: 

“The Tories have tried to sell-off the student loan book before, but abandoned the idea when they realised it was a bad deal for students and a bad deal for the tax-payer.

“This Government never learn any lessons – this sale will do nothing to ease the burden of debt piled on students by the Tories who have trebled tuition fees and scrapped maintenance grants.

“Labour has committed to restoring maintenance grants to help young people from all backgrounds have access to University.”

Ends 

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to news that families affected by Concentrix assessments are to have their cases reviewed, said:

“These figures further confirm that Concentrix were pursuing a cut first ask questions later approach, which saw thousands of low income families pay the price for an overzealous contractor, and a lack of government oversight. 

“This scandal exposes the overall approach by the Tories, which is to make those on low incomes pay for the last seven years of Tory economic failure.

“We welcome the fact that those who have been unfairly punished will have their cases finally reviewed. It is just a shame that the Tories had to be forced here kicking and screaming by Labour. However, those who have their decisions overturned must be reimbursed in full for the amounts that they lost as a matter of urgency.  Anything less will be seen as the government continuing to let them down.”

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party,  speaking ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the UK, said:

“When Theresa May meets the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow, she has let it be known she will tell him that building settlements on occupied Palestinian land “undermines trust”.

“That is simply not good enough. The Israeli government’s decision to build 3,000 new settlement homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law and a threat to peace and international security.

“It undermines still further the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, about which the Netanyahu government is increasingly contemptuous. 

“Fifty years after the United Nations demanded Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in the 1967 war and 70 years after the UN voted for the creation of a Palestinian state, the British government must act in support of peace and justice in the Middle East conflict. 

“Theresa May must make clear to the Israeli Prime Minister that the British government will stand unequivocally behind the rights of the Palestinian people, along with the many who support them in Israel, as well as human rights and justice across the region. 

“She must also demand an assurance from the Israeli Prime Minister that the improper interference by the Israeli embassy in British democratic politics exposed last month will not be repeated.”