The Labour Party’s parliamentary candidate for Battersea, in London, has admitted that the Labour Party failed to build enough housing during its 13 years in government. His statements follow that of a Labour spokesperson who admitted that Margaret Thatcher’s government did more for working class people by building more council houses in one year than Gordon Brown and Tony Blair’s administrations did in 13.
Will Martindale, who faces a tough battle against Conservative MP Jane Ellison and her near 6,000 majority in 2015 told a meeting of the Labour Finance and Industry Group in the City: “I think one of the biggest mistakes of the 2010 time was the lack of housing that we built.”
His comments, reports the London Evening Standard, follow criticisms by Labour’s housing spokesman Tom Copley.
Copley is reported to have said that the Labour Party should “apologise” due to the fact that the Thatcher government “built more council homes in a single year than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did in 13 years.”
The Standard reports: “Only 6,330 council houses were completed from 1998 to 2010, against 17,710 in 1990 alone. In 2004 just 130 council homes were built.”
Martindale’s website stresses: “I believe the biggest issue facing Battersea is housing. Good quality housing is everything, whether you own a place, rent or live in social housing.”
Labour leader Ed Miliband wrote recently that, “There is a chronic shortage of affordable homes in Britain, and nowhere is this clearer than in London”. He offered no apology for Labour’s failure to build affordable housing during its 13 years in power spanning 1997 to 2010.
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