MPs’ crocodile tears over housing crisis fool no one

❝❝

All renters live with insecure tenancies and in permanent fear of the dreaded Section 21 no-fault eviction notice

✒ READING your doublepage spread on the parliamentary intervention of Cornwall’s redoubtable housing crusaders, Tory MPs Steve Double and Cherilyn Mackrory, I was struck by their ability to strike a pose without actually proposing any concrete action.

The Truro MP said she was “determined to highlight [the issue] in Parliament and continue to work with the Government”. Our St Austell/ Newquay MP complained that the housing market was “broken” and when that happened “we need government to intervene”. It was, of course, Tory governments who enthusiastically intervened to sell off council housing and rig the market in favour of landlords and builders so that rents are unaffordable and most young people are unable to rent or buy. All renters live with insecure tenancies and in permanent fear of the dreaded Section 21 no-fault eviction notice – which Double’s and Mackrory’s government still refuses to abolish.

Parish and town councils up and down the county have urged remedial measures upon Cornwall Council such as: ending the sale of council housing; abolishing the bedroom tax; reintroducing secure tenancies in social housing controlled by Cornwall Council; reintroducing rent tribunals, ensuring rents are linked to income; requisitioning empty or unused properties; using its powers to make it unattractive to own second homes in Cornwall; setting up a register of private landlords; changing the definition of “affordable”; ending its reliance on developers for housebuilding. Cornwall Council, if it had the will, could employ its own wellpaid, well-trained, well-motivated workforce to build housing for rent designed by its own architects’ department. Cornwall Council has ignored these pleas and