Harry Stannard from Leicester sent us this report.

At its members’ meeting on January 10th, Westcotes branch of Leicester West CLP (Liz Kendall is the MP), passed the following resolution unanimously:

“We welcome the Shadow Cabinet’s decision to call for the ‘Right To Buy’ in England to be suspended, and that rent control legislation should be introduced in the private sector.  Along with the Swindon Tenants Campaign Group we also recognise that council housing is facing a serious funding crisis as a result of the so-called ‘self-financing’ policy since 2010, which has led to a growing loss of rental income to local authorities.

We call on the Labour Party and in particular the Shadow Cabinet, National Policy Forum and Leicester City’s Labour group to:

1) Press the government to reopen the 2012 ‘debt settlement’ and demand that it reduces the debt given to local authorities in line with the loss of income resulting from government policies since then.

2) Make a commitment that in government they will cancel the so-called ‘council housing debt’ imposed in 2012, which is draining resources as rental income declines significantly. This should be part of our commitment to making a massive council house-building programme one of the corner-stones of a Labour government.

We resolve to contact the STCG to enquire more details of their campaign, and will send this resolution to our CMC and other branches in our CLP”

Westcotes is the second largest branch in the constituency, and the motion was seconded by one of its councillors, Andy Connelly, who is Leicester City Council’s Assistant Mayor for Housing. Andy explained how council house building in the City had almost dried up for lack of funds, whilst sales enforced on us by the so-called ‘Right to Buy’ are now running at over 300 per annum.