“If the government cannot admit to mistakes, if it tries to silence discussion by using discipline as an instrument of fear, it will reap the electoral whirlwind.”
Martin Wicks, Labour Campaign for Council Housing
By the Labour Campaign for Council Housing
The decision to suspend four Labour MPs and take away the role of three trade envoys, following the row over the ill-health and disability benefit cuts, runs counter to the government’s promise to engage with backbenchers.
It is completely unprecedented for 127 Labour MPs to sign a ‘reasoned amendment’ which would kill a government Bill. That this could happen was the result of the government’s refusal to listen to the disability organisations that were calling on it to back down, and to their MPs who were inundated with angry and fearful protests from their constituents.
One of the reasons why even supporters of the Leadership were threatening to kill off the Bill was that these cuts were not in the Manifesto and the government had no democratic mandate from any Labour Party structure. No government can expect its MPs to blindly follow policies which increase poverty and in which they have had no say.
That they have chosen to suspend just 4 out of 47 MPs who voted against the Bill because of the £2 billion cuts still contained in it, can only be seen as a warning for the rest. Disabled people can reach no other conclusion than the partial retreat on Personal Independence Payments was tactical rather than recognition of a mistake. The government backed down because it feared it would lose the vote, rather than admitting that it had been wrong.
Ironically, in the case of one of the four, Chris Hinchliff, his suspension was said to be related to his amendments to the Planning Bill. Having refused to meet with him to discuss his amendments, the government opposed them. Now it seems, having withdrawn the whip for his ‘rebellion’ on the Planning Bill, the government has introduced its own amendment, at least similar to his.
We supported his amendments, which recognised that liberalising planning law would not resolve the housing crisis. His most important amendment was for “affordable housing” to mean ‘social rent housing’. The government opposed this since it is maintaining its support for the Tories definition of affordable housing, supporting “affordable rent” (up to 80% of market rent), “shared ownership”, and even “affordable private rent”.
As Chris Hinchliff said, “the developer led model” has enriched a handful of corporations while failing to deliver the housing we need. The Bill “slashes so-called red tape, stripping back democracy and environmental protections”. He said we need an alternative – mass council house building and getting tough on developers.”
Martin Wicks, Secretary, said:
“The action taken by the government against a small number of MPs who voted against the benefit cuts, will tell disabled people that it does not admit to a mistake. It was the government that was wrong, not the MPs. No government can expect its MPs to follow instructions when they have not even been involved in discussion on policy, especially when they were being asked to vote in support of pushing 250,000 into poverty. That a quarter of the PLP were threatening to vote down the Bill was because of the intense pressure that they came under from their constituents; because of the widespread anger that the government was seeking to “balance the books on the backs of the poor and the vulnerable”.
Debate, democratic discussion, cannot be silenced by bureaucratic action. If the government cannot admit to mistakes, if it tries to silence discussion by using discipline as an instrument of fear, it will reap the electoral whirlwind.
The Labour Campaign for Council Housing is calling for the reinstatement of the whip for all suspended MPs and withdrawal of the action against the trade envoys. We call on our members and supporters and the wider movement to do likewise.”
- You can follow the Labour Campaign for Council Housing on Facebook and Twitter/X;
- Martin Wicks is the Secretary of the Labour Campaign for Council Housing, you can follow Martin on Twitter here.
The UK does not need more housing, it needs fewer people. We should start by returning all the EU citizens who came here under Freedom of Movement and remained here when Brexit withdrew that freedom.