SPEECH AGAINST POLITICAL EVICTIONS

SPEECH AGAINST POLITICAL EVICTIONS

BY COUNCILLOR TONY BELTON

(LABOUR: LATCHMERE WARD,

WANDSWORTH BOROUGH COUNCIL)

at Wandsworth Council meeting 21 September 2011

Let’s start from some basic principles, which I hope we can all agree. First: the innocent should not suffer; second: our policies should not be implemented in an unconsidered and arbitrary way; third:  we need an effective penal and social policy for dealing with the kind of situation that Wandsworth faced in the riots on 8 August; fourth: there is a duty of leadership upon local authorities that does not apply to private landlords or possibly even to other social landlords; and fifth: evictions are a perfectly legitimate tool in the exercise of housing management.

I intend, however, to demonstrate that the use of evictions for essentially political purposes is unacceptable. But to do that I have to tackle the view that ‘the long-term security of a Council flat or house is a privileged position’, as stated by the Conservative leader, Cllr Ravi Govindia in The Times.[1] I have tried looking up the definition of privilege but the dictionaries have not caught up with this kind of usage. So all I can say is that it is not the kind of privilege that most in this Council aspire to. It is not the kind of privilege that Bullingdon Club members aspire to. It is not the kind of privilege that we mean when we talk about the ‘privileged classes’. What it might just mean in the eyes of some members is the ‘privilege’ of living in subsidised accommodation. But in reality that is not true either. Last year Wandsworth Council paid a profit rent of £22.6 million back to the National Housing Revenue Account. And indeed the national HRA itself has been in surplus and subsidising the National Exchequer since 2008/9. Council housing is no longer subsidised and hasn’t been so for some time – some kind of privilege! No wonder that, rather than feeling privileged, most Council tenants think they are treated as second class citizens – no other relatives of villains of the 8 August riots will lose their homes.

The truth is that the majority party, rather like feudal barons, or nineteenth-century century Tsars, consider Council housing to be a grace and favour offer to be withdrawn when the serfs misbehave. But in fact if Council housing is not exactly a right, most Council housing has been provided as a result of a parliamentary recognition of need. It has been provided as a statutory obligation.

So, back to the basic principles and first: the contention that the innocent should not suffer. Clearly, that means, first and foremost, the victims of last month’s outrages. I and my Labour colleagues absolutely share the feelings that all councillors have for them, for those who have spent a lifetime building up their businesses and their lives in our community, and for those who lost their sense of safety and peace in the community. But that is simple and unanimous. That is what all would expect. Much more difficult is to defend the rights of the innocent, who are closely associated with the villains or even the alleged villains. To defend their rights against the baying, outraged, populist response is a much more difficult thing to do. But it is right none the less so to do. Far easier, especially in the heat of the moment, to say ‘lock ‘em all up; withdraw their benefits; throw them out of the community’. It takes a bit of courage to stand against such populism. But are we really saying that a single mother and her children, or maybe a pair of pensioners, are to be put out on the streets? Are we really saying that a disabled partner or indeed a hard-working man should be evicted, because of the errant behaviour of one member of the household? That is the kind of justice which totalitarian regimes used to intimidate people, by punishing entire families.[2]

Cllr Govindia says that ‘evicting rioters is being fair to their neighbours’. He should try saying that to the neighbours of the current mother and daughter who are threatened with eviction for someone else’s actions. Their neighbours are outraged. I believe that they are starting a petition to protect the mother; and why shouldn’t they? She is part of an extremely robust, self-supporting community of largely single mothers. She is a hospital worker and part of a charitable support group on her estate. She is, as you might imagine, having a pretty rough time right now, even without the threat of eviction. And I would have thought that of all people in this chamber, given his background and the impact which Idi Amin had on his family, Cllr Govindia would have known of the injustices that can follow an unthought-through policy of family evictions.[3]

At this point, let me also refer to the cop-out clause used by Cllr Govindia, that in the final analysis the decision to evict will be that of a county court judge. Whilst that is true, it is the excuse of the lame. What is it saying but that the Wandsworth Conservatives are prepared to impose unconsidered and draconian policies upon Wandsworth tenants, because they know that a higher power will stop Wandsworth from carrying out an injustice. But the Council as landlord will meanwhile make their innocent lives Hell. Local authorities which act like that do not deserve to have power devolved to them.

My second principle was that any policy involving the use of evictions should not be arbitrary. But in the case of these post-riot evictions they are and must inevitably be so. Although the Director says that each one will be judged on a case-by-case basis, how can that be when there is no system for the police and the courts to notify the Council of who has been charged and/or convicted of any crimes? How can that be, when the first eviction letter went out within hours of a charge – not even a conviction? How can that be, when by any rational assumptions there must be approximately 200 families in Council accommodation today, who are directly related to current serving prisoners and who have (rightly) not been threatened with eviction?

By the way, the Wandsworth Committee Paper 11-719 for the next Education Committee is an interesting case in point. It says that 14 young people are amongst those charged with riot-related offences. I have learnt today that 5 of these live in Council property (though some may be living in leasehold tenancies) and one is a ‘looked-after child’ in Council care. Children we may think they are but the age of criminal responsibility in this country is actually (and controversially) as low as 10. In fact, it can well be argued that the parents of children as young as these do have some responsibility for their behaviour. And as the Council proposes to evict the parent of an independent 18-year-old, then surely we should be evicting all the families of these young people too? Including those who stand in loco parentis to the ‘looked-after child’? That is, all 60 of us Councillors, and in particular Cllrs Tracey and Dawson, who are the current Wandsworth cabinet members with responsibility for Education and Children’s Services.

In the longer term, it is completely inadequate to retreat into the simplistic, platitudinous analysis that the riots were all down to ‘Criminality, pure and simple’. Possibly in the heat of the moment on 9 August 2011, that was a justifiable response from David Cameron. Yet the analysis looked pretty thin to some of us then and it is looking weaker and weaker with every day since. There clearly does seem to have been a substantial element of criminality and criminal organisation in the Clapham Junction riot on 8 August. But that alone is an insufficient explanation, as it sheds no light on either the timing of the riots – or upon the roots of the criminality. And it says nothing about the epidemic speed and spread of the rioting, which was unprecedented in recent British history – and says nothing to account for the involvement of some rioters, previously unknown to the police. It also helps little in explaining the match between the addresses of those charged with riot-related offences and the most deprived areas of the country. It is said that these were not ‘political’ riots. But they certainly took place in a political context, as everything does. My colleague Cllr Boswell will talk more about that.

I could also say a great deal about the judicial issues involved in this case: such as eviction before trial, guilt by association, double jeopardy; the impact on tenants rather than (say) leaseholders but my colleague Cllr Daley will cover those points.

With more time, I would also have much more to say about the impact of this eviction policy on women and kids, its impact on future generations, and the damage it inflicts upon family cohesion. Just imagine, for example, what the policy of guilt by association would mean if it was applied to the families of all 80,000 prisoners across the UK. It would mean 80,000 families on the streets, and since men constitute the great majority of criminals, victimising women and children who are in need of help rather than hostility. Again, my colleague Cllr Speck will say more on that.

Oh and what a wasteful kind of penal system is this! Do we really think that our society will benefit from all this? Do we believe that this kind of justice, unfairly dispensed, will make the villains more or less inclined to have a stake in our community? Do we think eviction will act as a deterrent? Clearly it will deter families who are Council tenants from turning in their own villains. But I guess that is not the kind of deterrence we are looking for. Apart from anything else, eviction is an expensive process, which will lead to many appeals. And what’s more Councils will have to pick up the pieces, in terms of working with fractured families. That is a theme on which my colleague Cllr Randall has more to say.

Finally, I want to make a comment about the Council tenants’ contracts – and it’s really quite a simple comment – Get Real. Do you expect people, many of whom are desperate for housing, to take on board every word and every nuance of a contract signed years ago? Do you seriously imagine that a contract – signed perhaps even before the villains were born – can be a meaningful guide to all aspects of life? How many of you have read every clause of that software contract which you ticked a box about yesterday? By the way, do you expect a contract which does not even define what is meant by the ‘local area’ (in which crimes are punishable by eviction) to be respected in every detail? One of the principles, which I listed at the start, is to act wisely and humanely. Not in a panic-stricken rush to injustice.

I call upon Wandsworth Council to reject the use of evictions as a means of control and collateral punishment of the innocent, when the crimes committed bear no relationship to local housing management.