Under cover of the flag protests and after many months delay, Minister McCausland has announced his intention to privatise the Housing Executive (NIHE). In a statement to the Stormont Assembly on 9 January, he set out key proposals, including: “The development of a new landlord function out with the public sector focusing on service to tenants and enabling access to private funding to allow for suitable investment”.
Stock transfer is privatisation
Although rare in Northern Ireland this kind of housing transfer has been popular with various governments in Britain for the past twenty five years. They argue that this is not privatisation as the housing stock is transferred to not-for-profit housing associations. However, this misses key points. Most housing associations are limited companies that must comply with company law. And even if there are tenants on the association board they must put the interests of the housing first, in the same way as directors of private companies are required to.
More directly the experience in Britain has been one of higher rents, weakening tenant rights and more evictions. This would also be the case in NI. For example, in 2011 the NIHE average weekly rent was £52.76 compared to £81.69 for NI housing associations.
In part, the higher rents go to service the loans from private sector banks and financial institutions. Governments and public bodies can always borrow cheaper than private businesses. Further the housing stock will be used as collateral against loans. This means that if a housing association gets into financial trouble, it is the bank that will take over.
Therefore the stakes are very high as stock transfer is a one way process – there is no return in the future.
The Civil Rights Movement
The NIHE is not just the biggest public housing landlord in these islands; its formation is a key legacy of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement (NICRA). The Housing Executive was formed in 1971 as a response to the discrimination Catholics faced in housing. For example, in June 1968 the unionist-controlled Dungannon Council allocated a new house in the Caledon area, to a single 19-year-old Protestant woman.
In response a Catholic mother of three young children, occupied and then squatted in a nearby home.
This provoked the local council to forcibly evict the young family – nothing new so far. However, the eviction took place in clear view of television cameras. As one commentator noted:
The images of a front door being broken down and a young mother, bleeding from cuts and clutching an infant daughter, being harried into the street, were broadcast across Britain and around the world.
The Caledon affair was not a one-off but part of the systematic discrimination faced by Catholics at the time. The British government’s report (The Cameron Report) into the disturbances following a NICRA march in Derry on 5th October 1968 sets out a litany of housing grievances experienced by Catholics.
These included inadequate housing provision; unfair methods of allocation of houses; the refusal to adopt a 'points' system in allocations; and, “misuse in certain cases of discretionary powers of allocation of houses in order to perpetuate Unionist control of the local authority”.
The following year after riots in Belfast, the Battle of the Bogside and pressure from the British Home Secretary James Callaghan, the Stormont government started the process leading to the Housing Act (Northern Ireland), 1971 that established the NIHE.
Given this history the omission by McCausland of any information about how houses will be allocated should his proposed privatisation go ahead is conspicuous by its absence and a cause for concern.
A battle that can be won
However, it is not inevitable that McCausland’s planned privatisation will go ahead. Housing stock transfers have been stopped on many occasions in Britain. In 2002, 70,000 council tenants in Birmingham voted to stay with their public landlord; so did tenants in Edinburgh in 2005. In the past year tenants in Caerphilly and Flintshire in Wales have also voted against stock transfer.
The right to vote by tenants in these sorts of transfers was won by tenants campaigning against the Tory government in 1988. The Tories have summarily announced that council houses in five areas where to be handed over to local businessmen – the tenants were to have no say in the matter. In response tenants in Sunderland formed STAND (Sunderland Tenants Action – No Dictatorship). STAND along with other tenants’ groups, through petitioning, lobbying MPs and protesting outside parliament, forced the government to allow them a vote on changing their landlord.
In Northern Ireland, this is the first battle that tenants and campaigners must win. Further, there should be one ballot of all tenants held at the same time. McCausland and the privateers must not be allowed to divide tenants into smaller groups or try to whip up sectarianism to aid their privatisation plans.
Tenants and trade unions – united
While it is possible to stop housing transfers it is a huge battle and one that the privateers in government win more often than not.
However, the experience in Birmingham and Edinburgh shows that a united campaign of tenants, trade unions and campaigners can win. Tenants and trade unions in these cities were faced with slick pro-transfer campaigns costing millions of pounds, paid for out of the public purse.
In contrast the anti-transfer campaigns had to rely upon donations from the public and trade unions. Yet by delivering leaflets to every house affected, organising stalls and holding public meetings they were able to counter the privateers’ propaganda and win the ballots.
In Northern Ireland a good start has already been made with NIPSA (one of the trade unions organised in the NIHE) taking a strong stance against the transfer. The day after McCausland’s announcement they released a press statement: “NIPSA ... indicates a clear signal that it intends to robustly defend the retention of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE)”.
The following week NIPSA organised walkout protests outside NIHE offices across the region, with 300 people attending in Belfast.
NIPSA members must push their leaders to organise further action including strike action. Further other trade unions are also directly involved such as Unite and UCATT, both of whom have policies against the privatisation of public housing. Trade unions know that over time privatisation leads to worsening pay and conditions of housing workers.
It is also essential that NIPSA and other trade unions campaign jointly alongside tenants. A united campaign with a clear message has the best chance to beat McCausland and his privateers.
Housing not corporation tax
Of course, McCausland will say there is no alternative and that the NIHE is “unsustainable” according to a report that accountancy giants PwC have written. He is wrong.
Stock transfer to a housing association is designed to get round the HM Treasury rules on public sector borrowing. But the rules from Westminster are out of line with the rest of Europe, where public bodies like the NIHE are allowed to borrow to fund maintenance and even build much needed new public housing.
The simple message to McCausland is stop the privatisation and spend your energy on convincing the Westminster government to change the rules to allow the Housing Executive to borrow. After all this is what McCausland , Sammy Wilson, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuiness have been doing over the corporation tax rate.
In the more likely event that he won’t change his mind a united campaign by tenants and trade unions can stop the privatisation of 90,000
