Downing Street Says » Council Houses

» Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Council Houses

Asked about Caroline Flint’s comments this morning about council houses only being available to those in work, the PMS said that in general terms the Prime Minister welcomed a debate on proposals around improving incentives to work and getting more people into work. Caroline Flint had been making her position quite clear during the course of today and what she had been calling for was a national debate as to how we moved forward. This would apply to new tenants, not necessarily existing ones, although as she had said, we would need to have a debate on that subject as well.

Asked if the Prime Minister knew in advance that she would be suggesting the idea, the PMS replied that he had known. Put that council house campaigners believed it was a deliberate strategy to stigmatise and undermine the reputations of council houses, the PMS replied that that was not the case at all. We had done a huge amount under this Government, first through the Decent Homes Programme, to increase significantly the amount of investment in renovating and upgrading council housing and investing in new social housing units, which was a big feature of recent spending reviews.

Asked how this would reconcile with the legal duties of councils to provide housing, the PMS reiterated that what Caroline Flint was initiating was a debate on the subject. The Prime Minister was open to a debate on looking at measures that improved incentives to work. Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with the idea, the PMS said that what Caroline Flint was doing was initiating a debate and the Prime Minister thought in principle it was a good issue to be debating.

Put that if it was the case that the Prime Minister’s welfare reforms worked, there wouldn’t be anyone who wasn’t either in work, seeking work or on a training scheme, the PMS said we needed to look at all issues relating to Government policy which impacted on peoples incentives to work and this was what we were doing here.

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