Saturday, July 13, 2013
Vince accuses Tories
It is good to see Vince Cable in this morning's Guardian continuing to set out the differences between the Liberal Democrats and the Tories within the coalition.
In this particular instance he is accusing the Tories of blocking a Liberal Democrats plan to allow more council homes to be built through a relaxation of local authority borrowing rules. The party in England believe that councils could build up to 25,000 homes if they were allowed to pool their borrowing limits, releasing up to £2.8bn:
Cable's speech coincides with the Lib Dems releasing the text of a motion on the economy that Cable and Nick Clegg will jointly put forward at the party conference in September. It identifies the economic policies that the Lib Dems will be pushing within government over the next two years, all designed to stimulate growth without breaching the coalition's fiscal rules.
The plan to allow councils to pool borrowing is at the heart of it. Under the proposals, councils which have reached their borrowing limit but want to borrow more to build homes would be allowed to use another authority's unused borrowing allocation.
The Lib Dems say this policy, which is supported by the Local Government Association, could lead to the construction of between 15,000 and 25,000 new homes.
Other proposals in the Lib Dem motion include: further action to tackle youth unemployment; investigating the case for allowing council trading corporation debts to be classified as off balance sheet, allowing the organisations to borrow more; giving more borrowing powers to the green investment bank; and expanding the new business bank so that it can support the setting up of new banks and bring more competition into the industry.
Such an investment is much needed and not just to create jobs. There is a shortage of certain types of social housing in this country. If we are to tackle that then Councils need to be allowed to borrow to build. I want to see much more of this from Vince and Nick Clegg over the next 15 months.
In this particular instance he is accusing the Tories of blocking a Liberal Democrats plan to allow more council homes to be built through a relaxation of local authority borrowing rules. The party in England believe that councils could build up to 25,000 homes if they were allowed to pool their borrowing limits, releasing up to £2.8bn:
Cable's speech coincides with the Lib Dems releasing the text of a motion on the economy that Cable and Nick Clegg will jointly put forward at the party conference in September. It identifies the economic policies that the Lib Dems will be pushing within government over the next two years, all designed to stimulate growth without breaching the coalition's fiscal rules.
The plan to allow councils to pool borrowing is at the heart of it. Under the proposals, councils which have reached their borrowing limit but want to borrow more to build homes would be allowed to use another authority's unused borrowing allocation.
The Lib Dems say this policy, which is supported by the Local Government Association, could lead to the construction of between 15,000 and 25,000 new homes.
Other proposals in the Lib Dem motion include: further action to tackle youth unemployment; investigating the case for allowing council trading corporation debts to be classified as off balance sheet, allowing the organisations to borrow more; giving more borrowing powers to the green investment bank; and expanding the new business bank so that it can support the setting up of new banks and bring more competition into the industry.
Such an investment is much needed and not just to create jobs. There is a shortage of certain types of social housing in this country. If we are to tackle that then Councils need to be allowed to borrow to build. I want to see much more of this from Vince and Nick Clegg over the next 15 months.
