Unite welcomes council housing boost

The trades union Unite has welcomed the Government’s spending boost to deliver more council housing while accusing the Conservative Party of aiming to benefit the “better off”.

Housing Minister John Healey said 73 councils covering every region of England will share an extra £122.6 million. Councils will be expected to match the Government’s grant, bringing total public investment in the programme to over £500 million to build more than 4,000 new council homes for 8,000 people.

Additionally, the minister is requiring all councils receiving government funds to offer apprenticeship and local job recruitment schemes, expected to create 7 500 jobs and around 100 new apprenticeship places.

Unite deputy general secretary, Jack Dromey, said: “Labour is building Britain out of recession, meeting the need for affordable and energy-efficient homes by putting unemployed construction workers back to work and creating apprenticeship opportunities for the young. And councils will be centre-stage as a new generation of council homes go up.

”The contrast with the Tories could not be starker. For Labour, decent homes; for Cameron, stately homes with an inheritance tax bonanza for Notting Hill and the richest 3,000 estates in Britain.”

The union’s assistant general secretary for the public sector, Gail Cartmail, added: ”This announcement will pull the rug from under the British National Party intent on peddling myths that the government is not committed to council housing. It is now up to local authorities to work rapidly to get this programme moving.”

Last year Unite unveiled its blueprint ‘Meeting housing need: Building Britain out of recession’ which called for a massive council and social house building programme for the 4.5 million people on waiting lists. Such a programme would act as an “engine for economic revival”, by creating thousands of jobs in the construction industry and its suppliers, the union said.