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Hundreds to protest against the Housing Bill
TRADE unionists will join forces with housing campaigners today as hundreds march on Parliament to protest against the Tories’ infamous Housing Bill.
Members of general union GMB will be standing shoulder to shoulder with housing, community and disabled activists to demand that the Lords repeal the paper once and for all.
As reported in yesterday’s Star, experts have warned the Tories’ new flagship policies would spell the end of social housing as we know it.
GMB political officer Gary Doolan said his unions would be “turning up the gas on the whole situation on the Tory housing rip off.”
He added: “This campaign is just starting and will be the most important point in the [London] mayoral election. The government is making the housing crisis worse.
“The Housing Bill provides for the sell-off of existing council and housing association homes — with no replacements for rent.
“In addition it will force the sale of council homes on the open market to pay for housing associations’ Right to Buy.
“The House of Lords must remove this noxious proposal which turns the clock back.”
Included in the Housing and Planning Bill are also provisions to end secure tenancies and relabel council estates up for regeneration as “brownfield land.”
Former Labour leader of Lambeth Council Joan Twelves will also be attending the lobby.
She told the Star: “The Tories are using the housing crisis they have created to declare an underreported, misreported war on social housing tenants, local authorities and housing associations under the guise of encouraging home ownership.
“Working class communities will be destroyed and essential workers driven out of the cities if this Bill goes through.”
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