I have just read an interesting article in the Times, David Cameron is hinting at huge changes for council home owners, those waiting and those already living in council properties.
Millions of people who have been stuck for years on council house waiting lists could benefit from sweeping reforms, David Cameron said yesterday.
The Prime Minister revealed the policy during a candid session with voters as he warned that looming budget cuts would shrink the State for good.
Council tenants should have to move into the private sector if their earnings improved significantly, he said, to help to tackle the backlog of five million people on waiting lists.
The Government is considering introducing reviews every five or ten years, which would mean that those given council homes could be moved into smaller places once their children have grown up.
In addition, no one would be able to keep a council property in the family by handing it down a generation.
Mr Cameron said that he wanted to see a more flexible system where people could "move through council housing rather than seeing it as something you get for life".
Launching an event in Birmingham to brace the public for severe spending cuts, he said: "Should we be asking: when you’re given a council home — maybe in five or ten years you will be doing a different job, you will be better paid, will not need that home and will be able to go to the private sector."
He conceded that the proposal would trigger "quite a big argument". He said that people had to open their minds to new ways of doing things so that Britain lives within its means.
Grant Shapps, the Housing Minister, will launch a consultation on council house tenure this year and the results could be included in legislation in the current parliamentary session.
Kay Boycott, ofthe Shelter charity, said that the policy could be very costly for local councils to implement. To justify taking away the only bit of safety and security the poorest and most vulnerable in our society have, it would need to be proved beyond a doubt that there would be a significant benefit for those in housing need."
The Prime Minister also claimed "moral responsibility" for public sector cuts amid concerns that voters are unprepared for the sheer scale of the austerity measures to be revealed in October.
In his starkest warning yet of how the £113 billion squeeze will reshape Britain, Mr Cameron said that services axed would not be reinstated when the good times returned. He said that instead the country should use this "painful and difficult process" to find ways of doing more with less.
He insisted that the cuts gave Britain a chance to return to a more secure financial footing and offered a "prize" on the other side. "It’s going to be a difficult period for Britain. We shouldn’t think it’s all doom and gloom. At the end of this there will be light and hope and a stronger economy."
During a 60-minute question-andanswer session, the first of several that he and Nick Clegg will hold over the summer to brace the country for the pain, Mr Cameron fielded 19 questions from an audience of Heart FM listeners and Birmingham Mail readers.
Rose Jones, an official for the West Midlands Fire Brigades Union, asked him to pledge to reinstate anything that the Fire Service lost to cuts once the country returned to economic health.
Mr Cameron replied: "Should we cut things now and then go back later and try and restore them? I think that’s the wrong approach. Let’s do this in a way that’s sustainable. We have all got to open our minds and think, how can we work in a different way? Let’s try and think of a different way of what you are doing so we can find ways of doing more for less."
He urged banks to increase lending >and said that cutting the debt was a moral issue. "I don’t think we should be racking up debt for our children to pay, for future generations to pay."
He said that the budget situation was "dreadful", worse than Greece or Spain.
However, he insisted: "If we can do it, the country can come out stronger and with more better-paid jobs for people. We can be a real success story in this decade as we have been in the past."
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