Caroline Lucas, the Green Party\u2019s MP for Brighton Pavilion, will vote against the Housing and Planning Bill later today.<\/p>\n
Lucas, who tabled a reasoned amendment to the Bill at Second Reading, has labelled the legislation as \u2018another nail in the coffin for British social housing\u2019. She will speak later today at a rally organised by Defend Council Housing.<\/p>\n
\nShe said:
\n\u201cThe housing crisis is biting hard. Renting is unaffordable, our social housing stock is dwindling and buying a home is still an impossible dream for many. And, as with so many of the challenges our society faces, it is the young who are suffering the worst.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government had an opportunity to utterly rethink the housing model \u2013 but instead Parliament is being presented with legislation that\u2019s going to make the situation far worse \u2013 and put another nail in the coffin for British social housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a few good measures in the Bill. The provisions on rogue landlords, letting agents and the introduction of a brownfield register are welcome \u2013 but they simply don\u2019t go far enough to protect renters or encourage the building of truly affordable homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overall effect of this legislation will be inflict further harm on those already suffering and to drag more people into the housing crisis. It will decrease the amount of social housing, fail to bring down sky-high rental costs and do nothing to keep people warm in their homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example the Bill should have looked at ways to make rents fall \u2013 but it doesn\u2019t even go as far as bringing in smart rent controls to keep them in line with inflation.\u201d
\nLucas went on to say:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government should also have seized this moment to \u2018eco-fit\u2019 homes across the UK. That means solar panels on every suitable house (as well as on public buildings) and a mass-insulation scheme across the UK \u2013 which would create jobs, cut heating bills and keep people warm in their homes. Instead there\u2019s no guarantee in the Bill that new homes will be energy efficient \u2013 and no commitment to the kind of retrofitting scheme we desperately need. Another opportunity squandered.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe housing crisis we\u2019re facing is the result of botched policies by successive Governments \u2013 and this latest Bill is set to compound that failure. I\u2019ll be voting against the Housing and Planning Bill later today \u2013 and I\u2019d urge MPs from all sides of the House of Commons to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caroline Lucas, the Green Party\u2019s MP for Brighton Pavilion, will vote against the Housing and Planning Bill later today. Lucas, who tabled a reasoned amendment to the Bill at Second Reading, has labelled the legislation as \u2018another nail in the coffin for British social housing\u2019. She will speak later today at a rally organised by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,601,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlords","category-developers","category-housing-market"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5592,"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5590\/revisions\/5592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hip-consultant.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}