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From International Socialism, No.56, March 1973, pp.8-10.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Fair Deal for Housing, as the Tory White Paper on rents was so ironically titled, was published in July 1971. Although the Tories had indicated in the November 1970 ‘mini-budget’ that they hoped to save up to £300 million from cutting back housing subsidies, even their supporters were surprised at the ferocity of their proposals.
Removal of housing powers of local authorities; fines, surcharges and commissioners if they didn’t agree. Rents to double by 1976 and be jacked up every three years thereafter; the most extensive and most vicious means test since the 1930s, etc. All this added up to the most savage attack on the council tenant since the advent of council housing in 1888.
Everyone to the left of the Tory Party (and even some Tory councillors) condemned the White Paper and demanded its withdrawal or defeat. There was one notable exception among Labour Party leaders: Richard Crossman (for much of his time from 1964 to 70, Labour’s Minister of Housing) welcomed the main points of the Bill. ‘I am glad to see that the government is extending the principles of our 1965 Rent Act to council tenants.’ (Crossman’s 1965 Rent Act introduced the concept of ‘fair rents’ and has since raised the vast majority of private tenants’ rents dealt with under it.) Peter Walker, the Tory minister, also paid tribute to Labour’s work in this area.
However, the rest of Labour’s leaders shrugged off this embarrassment as they began to mount their ‘heroic’ offensive against the Bill in Parliament. However, it quickly became clear that Parliament was where their opposition would be confined to. After many requests from Labour’s 400 local councils who controlled housing, the NEC issued a statement in March 1972 giving advice to local councils.
After much deliberation the document said: ‘The effects (of the Housing Finance Act) will be different from authority to authority and therefore the NEC has decided that it is not possible to give advice to local authorities on a national basis.’
This fence-sitting by Labour’s NEC left many Labour councils confused and divided. Most of them put off decisions till later in the year in the hope something would turn up. More importantly, the local elections were at hand; in many areas Labour swept to victory on a policy of non-implementation of the Housing Finance Act and opposition to rent rises.
By May, with local elections safely won the official Labour line changed. They now advised Labour councils to implement the Act, and try and get reductions in the rent rises. The justification was that ‘loopholes’ existed which meant that the full £1 rent rise might not have to be levied.
However, when Labour’s conference of local councillors was held at Central Hall, Westminster, in June 1972, the real reason became clear. Crosland, Labour’s spokesman, gave the game away: ‘We are all Parliamentary democrats.’ ‘It may be a bad law, but it is the law and it must be obeyed!’ Labour’s concern with Parliament and the law, reflected in their attitude to the Industrial Relations Act and currently to the wage freeze was more important than defending the tenants.
This change of line was enough to get most Labour councils off the hook. One after another they reversed their positions and decided to put up the rents. What could have been a massive opposition by 400 Labour councils involving the big majority of council tenants became, by October, a small minority of 40 councils. These were quickly picked off and pressurised by the Tories into co-operation by threats of withdrawal of subsidies, surcharges etc.
Neither were they assisted by a decision of Labour’s NEC in January 1973 that no future Labour government would reimburse councillors penalised for their opposition to the Act. (This despite a majority of over four million for a resolution pledging repayment passed at the annual conference three months earlier!) At the time of writing, therefore, opposition from Labour councils consists of Clay Cross in England, whose councillors have just been surcharged to the tune of £653 each, and Clydebank in Scotland.
The Labour leaders sell-out was predictable; however, many people expected the Labour Left and the CP to organise a more effective fight on this major issue. This was not the case; the Labour Left was unable even to organise effective links between councils opposed to implementation. And as the councils collapsed one by one they could only bemoan what might have been. They had no strategy other than non-implementation; therefore when this failed they were left stranded.
This was equally true of the Communist Party. Their strategy, in line with their reformist politics and electoral tactics, relied solely on the Labour councils to defend the tenants. The party’s official pamphlet called on Labour councils to defy the Act, but never once mentioned independent action by tenants or trade unions. This was reflected in the pages of the Morning Star, which gave the impression that the class struggle had been removed to the council chamber.
The CP ‘front’ organisation, the National Association of Tenants and Residents, had an identical line. When they called a national tenants’ conference in July 1972 they issued a four-page policy document which made no mention of rent strikes or industrial action to fight the rent rises. When amendments to this effect were moved by IS tenants’ delegates they got substantial majorities despite opposition from the platform.
The only significant force on the Left arguing for a different approach was the International Socialists. From the beginning we argued that Labour would sell out and the opposition of the Labour councils would collapse. Therefore we argued that it was crucial to build tenants’ organisations with a solid base and with close links with trade unions. Only a policy of mass rent strikes backed by industrial action could defeat the rent rises.
To this end IS branches all over the country devoted a big proportion of their work. Over half a million leaflets were distributed, many tenants’ associations were set up or revived, over 80,000 copies of a pamphlet were sold to tenants, and above all, a policy of rent strikes backed by industrial action was argued for to defeat the rent rises.
Tenants’ organisations fall into two basic types. First there are long-standing organisations which keep going on a social basis – bingo, old people’s clubs, outings to the seaside etc. While these are admirable activities, these associations are on the whole not likely to move themselves into militant action to
fight rent rises. The second type get thrown up by issues of rent rises, conditions of housing or other grievances. They tend to grow very rapidly, involve many tenants, and later decline when the issue is tackled and either victory or defeat occurs.
There is no doubt that the Housing Finance Act produced the most widespread upsurge of the tenants’ movement yet seen in this country. Tenants’ associations, action committees, tenants’ unions, were set up in most major towns and cities. At their peak they involved hundreds of thousands of tenants in action. These included mass meetings, demonstrations, petitions, local newsletters, posters etc.
Unfortunately, however, many of the tenants’ organisations were not clear in their strategy of how to fight the rent rises. Many of them placed their reliance on their Labour councils, and when these collapsed, were unprepared for any alternative strategy. Because IS was not yet strong enough to give an effective national lead, only a minority of tenants’ organisations adopted a policy of rent strikes to fight the rent rises.
Despite this, when 1 October came, rent strikes were launched in over 80 towns and cities. It is difficult to give exact figures for the numbers of tenants involved, but it certainly ran into several hundreds of thousands. The majority of these went on partial rent strike, i.e. they refused to pay the rent rise. However, there were a substantial number who went on total rent strike, notably in Liverpool.
The level of support from the trade union movement could also have been better. The only significant industrial action so far in support of the tenants has been the one day strike in Liverpool on 2 October supported by the dockers and other workers. Many other pledges of support have come from trade unions, shop stewards etc. However, whether these will be translated into action remains to be seen. A further problem has been the lack of an effective national tenants’ organisation to link the tenants in struggle, exchange experiences and solidarity.
For NATR the rent strikes hardly exist, and NATR itself will no doubt soon retire into the obscurity it deserves, to be revived when the CP next decides to campaign on the tenants’ issue. At the time of writing there is an attempt by tenants in the North-West (the main centre of militancy) to get a national rent strike conference off the ground, but it may well be too late to be successful.
Because of all these factors the tenants’ movements and the rent strikes are inevitably in decline. Inevitably, because tenants and rent strikes are inherently difficult to organise in mass action over a long period. The problem of isolation of indivcdual tenants; the fact that councils will attempt to break down resistance by intimidation over a period; the fear of accumulating large debts; and the fear of eviction in many cases means that unless success comes quickly, support wanes. This is what is happening at present. Whether it will continue to decline depends on a number of factors.
The fact that thousands of tenants are still on rent strike means that councils will soon be forced into taking action against them. Already one or two Labour councils have
threatened evictions which have so far been successfully repulsed. However, if attempts at widespread evictions do take place, and are defeated by tenants’ action or industrial action, then this could produce a mass response. Or conceivably if the Clay Cross councillors are imprisoned then this too could spark a more widespread resistance.
However, apart from the rent strikes going on there are other factors which will ensure that rents will be a continuing battleground for the working class in 1973. Firstly, local councils must have issued to their tenants by 10 February their assessment of their provisional fair rents. The tenants then have two months to raise objections with the council, i.e. by 10 April. The council must by 10 June send these to the rent scrutiny boards, who in turn are likely to fix the fair rents before October.
The evidence from a number of Labour councils is that they will deliberately pitch their assessments fairly low, in the hope of getting away with this at the rent scrutiny board. However since the boards are appointed by the government; are ‘independent’; are composed of estate agents, surveyors and lawyers; and must be guided by the criteria in the Act, their estimates are likely to be much higher.
Also of course rents are conveniently excluded from the freeze (we take care of the low-paid through the means test!). This means that over one million tenants will face rent rises of 50p in April. For many of these tenants this may be the final straw which will drive them into action. In October another 50p rise for over four million tenants will produce a further wave of resistance.
1972 was a tremendous year of working-class activity among dockers, builders, engineers, railwaymen etc. This was also the case on the council estates. 1973 is an even more crucial year for the organised labour movement. The success of the Tory freeze depends not only on holding down wages through the law, but in cutting living standards through rising prices, cuts in the social services etc. Rents are an important part of this strategy: over half the population and the big majority of industrial workers live in rented accommodation. The struggle against rising rents will remain an important part of the battle against the Tories in 1973.
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