The Great London Clearances: Decision Time

The House of Lords’ Amendments to the Housing Bill

Such is the perversion of democracy in this country that the fate of working class homes is now in the hand of unelected peers and bishops.

And such are the peculiarities of the British class system that, while our old Etonian elected leaders sell off our land and homes to the highest bidders, it is lords and ladies born and bred on council estates who are leading the battle against them.

These lords and ladies have spent some weeks in Committee scrutinising the Housing and Planning Bill passed with such haste by the House of Commons on the night of 12 January and they are now reporting back. Despite having discussed a myriad amendments, only some will get voted on by the full House as only five sessions have been timetabled with the third (final) reading of the bill scheduled for 27 April.

Of the three days of report so far, some major amendments have already been passed by the Lords, defeating the Government by substantial majorities. Faced with the prospect of further defeats, the Government has also made a number of small but significant concessions.

After the third reading in the Lords, the Government can either accept their amendments or start what is known as ‘ping pong’, sending the Bill back for the Lords to try again. Both Houses have to agree the exact wording of the Bill and it could go back and forth several times. This is where we will see how determined our ermined friends are to block the destruction of our homes and lives. The Tories do not have a majority in the Lords – and their current Brin-Brexit civil war over Europe – as well as a few other little difficulties – makes it hard to predict their actions. But they used their English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) laws to push the Bill through the Commons first time round – much to the anger of the SNP – and will undoubtedly continue to use this artificially large anti-working class majority to try to reject anything coming out of the Lords.

Time may be against them. The passage of the Bill has to be completed before Parliament is prorogued in advance of the Queen’s Speech on 18 May. If the Bill hasn’t been done and dusted – and carved into the skin of a baby goat – before that day, then it falls and they have to start all over again.

This would Kill the Bill! Fingers crossed!

The Government has made it clear that they consider the amendments to Pay to Stay to be wrecking amendments and that they will attempt to overturn them when the Bill returns to the Commons. Let ping-pong commence!

To be continued……….

Also to be continued is the Campaign against the Housing Bill.

The Bill is now scheduled to return to the Commons on 3 May. There will be an emergency protest and lobby from 12-2 Old Palace Yard, SW1 3JY, and a meeting inside Parliament in Committee Room 12 from 3pm-7pm.

https://www.facebook.com/events/221362291559078/

While all these amendments are welcome, and we thank those peers who have worked so hard to build such a strong alliance of opposition to the Bill, they are no more than scraps – scraps from the high table. The fact that this Tory Government is likely to try to overturn even these scraps shows with what deep contempt they hold those of us who live in social housing and whose work creates the wealth they so flagrantly enjoy.