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Housing and Regeneration Bill

In fact, the Government have quite a clear view on that. The Department's own guidance, which was considered in a court case only last year, states that material produced by an authority in a transfer ballot"““should state both the possible benefits””," which it does to a great extent, but that it should also state, which it never does, the"““disadvantages of the options as determined by the investment appraisal… The informal material should never be written in such a way that tenants feel the authority is actively promoting a yes vote by presenting only the pro-transfer arguments.””" In fact, as many people have already attested, and as court cases and district auditors have attested, that is simply ignored, and there is no legal requirement to follow the Government's advice. I cannot explain why the Government allow that travesty to continue and insist on ignoring the 2.5 million council tenants who have voted, sometimes repeatedly, wasting £500,000 every time an authority is forced to have yet another ballot on a transfer that will be rejected. Why do the Government keep rejecting what those 2.5 million council tenants have voted for, by saying that they will penalise them? Why do a Labour Government, of all people, keep rejecting and ignoring what their own conference has voted for year after year? If we believe in democracy, we must accept new clause 1. If we really want to tackle homelessness and improve the housing conditions of people who tend to be the poorest in society, we must accept new clause 8.