They are demonstrating against plans by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government to allow councils to force through fixed-term tenancies, raise rents to “market rates” and push for many more evictions in the face of deep cuts in housing benefit.
Defend Council Housing has long argued for what it calls the “fourth option” – proper and substantial long-term investment to improve our existing housing stock and to help build a new generation of “first-class council housing”.
Campaigners at the Housing Emergency mass lobby will call on MPs to defend secure tenancies and current rent levels and housing benefit.
Speakers include Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield South East; Frank Dobson, Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras; Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion; Catherine West, Labour leader of Islington Council; and the film director Ken Loach, who in 1966 made Cathy Come Home, a powerful naturalistic drama about unemployment and homelessness, and one of the most important and influential films of the post-war period.
There will also be workshops organised by Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people; the Housing Law Practitioners Association; the Haldane Society of socialist lawyers; the Leeds Tenants Federation; the PCS public sector union and Defend Council Housing itself.
