No incentive for landlord MPs to relieve housing crisis

MAY I thank Anthony Wallis for seconding my letter regarding the building of houses for rent in Holliers Walk, and not another supermarket.

Private landlords keep hiking up their rents, knowing that many tenants have no alternative but to cough up, and knowing that Housing Benefit, increasing year on year, will help make up the shortfall when poorer tenants simply cannot afford to pay (in full).

More and more individuals and families living on the poverty line are being made homeless because they have been “sanctioned” by this caring and compassionate government.

What readers may be unaware of is that 40% of Tory MPs are private landlords who benefit directly from higher and higher rents.

Yes, 40%. What incentive do they have to support a public housing programme?

Who are the real scroungers, may I ask, when it comes to housing bene- fit?

I have written extensively about how the selfish interests of the Tory Party distort our economy and our culture.

Here is one more example of their pernicious influence.

What is needed is a Housing Bond paying fair interest and available to the general public to generate sufficient funds from which LAs could borrow, paying a slightly higher rate, in order to finance a public housing programme.

Only the Labour Party could bring in such a socially responsible and mutually beneficial scheme.

Rents would be fair and affordable, providing income streams to indebted councils, leaving those landlords who exploit the housing shortage with no option but to reduce their rents or sell up.

The Tories hold this country back and are enemies of progress.

John Payne