Richard Boyd Barrett: Bill Rations Social Housing, Risks Homelessness

Yeah, so the government narrative on this bill is that it is largely a technical bill that is going to put on a statutory footing what is already the practice in terms of eligibility criteria in terms of residency and habitual residence for eligibility for social housing. So it's just technical and also it's a tidying up exercise a little bit more efficiency in terms of decisions of the RTB in the second instance. So there's nothing there's nothing to see here nothing to be concerned about. Now I have to say that begs the question really why are we doing it? What is the rationale for this and has already been said why are you doing it if we're not really doing much anyway and why is there such a big rush to do it? That begs pretty serious questions and I have to ask that question in the context of what's happened up the north in the last in this week okay because these things I'm afraid sadly have become connected. So we have a horrific attack horrific attack that takes place in Belfast which you know should be utterly condemned and the perpetrator of that attack should be brought to justice and people are rightly terrified horrified by what happened and of course one's sympathy goes out to the to the victim of this of this terrible attack but we've also seen how that terrible attack has then resulted in horrific attacks on people who happen to be immigrants and people of color in the north houses being burnt out vile vicious racist attacks taking place against people purely on the basis that they're immigrants or deemed to be immigrants or people of color who have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with that attack and of course horrific things happen all the time you know as a lot of people have been highlighting in the north we have a risk horrific instances of domestic violence against women where they are killed as a result of domestic violence we have horrific instances of organized crime in this country where you know people are chopped up by criminals and so on and there's revulsion and horror but it doesn't generally lead to attacks on people who have nothing to do with those things and generalizations but it has in the context of the north it has fueled racist pogroms against people of color and migrants because the alleged perpetrator of that horrific assault was an immigrant and that certain forces certain political forces on the far right coincidentally also people who tend to be supporters of the Israeli regime I just throw that in for good measure and who seem to get a lot of support online for their targeting of immigrants from the United States and from Britain and so on for whipping up hatred and fear and hostility and the sort of violence we're seeing, horrific pogrom violence against immigrants from really vile political forces on the far right from those countries. Now how is that all connected to what we're discussing here well you see the problem is we've got to stand up against that the government political forces who have any sense of decency should not in any way lean into narratives which suggest that because you're an immigrant because you're a person of color that somehow you're a threat you're something to be feared that you're a problem for our society and sort of in any way leaning into a narrative which can lead to that sort of stuff but I think that's what the government are doing that's what the government are doing they're leaning into that stuff because of course the truth is we have a shortage of housing and we have a catastrophic housing crisis not because of immigrants coming into this country but because of a government that has failed for more than a decade to address that housing crisis to deliver the social and affordable housing necessary to address it to deal with the homelessness crisis that continues to escalate and yet the government have leaned into the narrative that somehow it's because there's too many people rather than they haven't provided enough social and affordable housing or they have failed that they have failed to take measures that would actually prevent people ending up homeless and of course that leads into the racist narrative being pushed by the far-right which ends in the sort of stuff that we've seen in the last few weeks and I fear given that there seems to be no apparent rationale for this because this is about rationing access to something that there shouldn't be a shortage of. That's essentially what this bill is about. There shouldn't be a shortage of housing, there shouldn't be a shortage of social and affordable housing, there shouldn't be homelessness but what this bill is about is about rationing access to something that there shouldn't be a shortage of. Because it should be a basic right and of course it's a handy way to deflect from the government's own responsibility. You see the oldest trick in the book and politics generally is watch what my right hand is doing so you don't see what my left hand is doing. So you know this week I've tried to highlight the fact that Dunleary Routdown is selling off land zoned for a thousand homes. A thousand homes in publicly owned land to private developers. Nobody's talking about that. It's an absolute scandal. So on a site that is publicly owned where we should have a hundred percent social and affordable housing we're only going to get twenty percent social and affordable housing because the government have decided to sell it off and somebody's going to profiteer out of it. And that in my opinion is why we have a housing crisis. Because the government is looking after people who are profiteering from the inadequate supply of the most basic thing in the world. An affordable secure roof over your head. They're doing things to benefit even in this bill. Just make it ever so slightly easier for example for landlords to evict people. Because technical problems with termination notices now won't be a reason to stop an eviction. So it's just a little bit easier for the landlords to evict people when they shouldn't be allowed to evict people at all in the midst of a homelessness crisis. And claiming that nobody is going to be excluded from social housing eligibility that previously was eligible for it. But in actuality as multiple organizations Mercy Law, IREC and so on are saying may well actually result in that. But in any event there's a performative element to it because what it's saying is there is a problem we need to tighten up here suggesting that there are people who are not eligible and don't have a right to social housing might be getting it. So we've got to tighten it up. When I can tell you that just certainly isn't happening. It's not happening. People asylum seekers are not being housed in social housing. It's not happening. There's an implication that maybe it is and therefore we've got to tighten it up. And the consequence may be the very vulnerable people may be excluded from emergency accommodation or even potentially from eligibility from social housing because one person in the household hasn't quite met the criteria even though everybody else has met the criteria. Or children, vulnerable children or people who are victims of human trafficking and so on may be deemed illegible. And as I understand the government are going to bring forward amendments at the next stage which could mean the eligibility thresholds required for social housing could then be sort of applied across to access to emergency accommodation. So where are they going to go? Where are the people who are deemed ineligible or can't gain access to emergency accommodation? Where are they going to go? They're going to end up on the streets homeless. But the government have achieved a performative act of pointing the finger at them. Setting them up as somehow a problem that has to be managed and pointing the finger at them. Fueling and giving ground and concessions to the sort of people who are engaging in pogroms in the north at the moment. So I think the government needs, well to be honest that's what I think the government are up to here because I don't really see other than that the reasons for this legislation. So I'm deeply concerned about what the government is doing. We'll obviously have more detailed questions at committee stage about all of this but certainly we didn't even accept many of the recommendations put forward by the Joint Committee on how this legislation should be done which begs very very serious questions about what the real agenda behind it is.