Stirrer TV

THE LUTZ REPORT ON.....................JOHN LINES

03-04-2010

Richard Lutz interviews Birmingham housing boss Councillor John Lines who has been in charge of the city’s 65,000 council houses for the past six years. And he leaves the session with more questions than answers.

There is a stream of mental post-it notes in my head as Councillor John Lines’ chat with me progresses. He says things that need checking and I will go into that later in this article.

But first, the essence of an interview which you can watch yourself, unedited, here.

I meet him in his council offices. He is a robust squat man in his early sixties and my first perception is of an American small town sheriff - the kind of man who instinctively and with unbendable conviction shoots from the mouth first and then engages his brain.

But when John Lines scrabbles from behind his busy desk and offers his meaty hand, I’m met with a man who smiles openly and more or less says: ‘Give me your best shot.’ And then proceeds to say what’s on his publicly-minded mind.

But first a recap: he infamously rose to immediate fame (or infamy depending on how you reacted) 5 years ago when he called asylum seekers ‘scumbags.’ He formally apologised for his use of the words but not the sentiment.

To be fair, The Scumbag Affair, and its rumbling after effects, clouds certain achievements with which he has been involved.

The first is the Municipal Housing Trust which Cllr Lines says will have built 220 homes by the end of the year. And, he hopes, 500 by 2013.

The difference between the trust and council housing, he explained, is that all trust income can be put directly back into maintenance and repair. No cash goes elsewhere.

‘Sadly under present laws,’ he said getting in a politicking low punch, ‘it is very difficult to build council houses so the only way we could get around it is to form a trust.’ Homes are planned for Hodge Hill, Handsworth, Sparkbrook and Kings Norton.

And then there’s The Alderson Trust. Cllr Lines is a member. It runs Homes for Heroes to provide accommodation for returning veterans. There are already 14 of these homes. But he hopes to add another 12 this year.

‘With Iraq and Afghanistan we got more of our boys and girls coming out of the forces that are disabled and need someplace to live. In the trust we have capital money to build more houses. I have the land to provide for the Alderson Trust to build those houses for our heroes.’

He mentions how brave soldiers deserve good housing in their home city. I agree and say maybe some of the asylum seekers were brave in having to deal with fascist dictators like Mugabe or thugs who run Iran.

‘You’ve got it confused,’ he tells me. ‘They’re not asylum seekers. You’re thinking of refugees.’

Am I? I’ll check. This is where it can get muddy.

Mr Lines says in Birmingham ‘we care about asylum seekers.’ But he has a deep seated anger about people who he perceives as milking the system. ‘How is it they’ve gone through 5 or 6 countries to get to England? Why is that?’

I let the rhetorical question go for the time.

I ask about the present state of play with public housing and those who are seeking asylum in the city.

He stresses that it is government edict to house asylum seekers. ‘We have a statutory duty to do that’ he said bluntly.

‘We rely on private landlords to do that. Landlords are recommended to us to allocate the properties to asylum seekers and the government provides the cash.’

A mental note - does that mean not one council house is used to accommodate these people? I’ll check.

And as I slap that Post It note in my head, Cllr Lines continues: ‘We have 30,000 Brummies on the waiting list for homes. Is it fair that someone should come from abroad and jump the queue?’

This interview is about housing not the vexed question of immigration. I move on.

I ask if there would be a need for his Municipal Housing Trust if the Tories hadn’t backed the sale of the best stock back in the eighties.

‘Oh dear‘ he said amid chuckles, ‘That is a feeble argument. Margaret Thatcher gave council tenants the right to buy if they so wished because she realised that most people preferred to own their own houses.’

He lays the blame not on the council house sales but on the decisions to demolish the stock left over.

Despite having a ‘feeble argument’, I repeat my question that by selling public housing, it created problems.

He said: ‘When the homes were being sold, Margaret Thatcher had a vision that the money should be re-invested into public housing. It never actually worked out that way. Money was spent elsewhere. I’m doing that (investing in housing) and doing it in a big way.’

Mrs Thatcher wanted to re invest in council homes? Another check, I note. The interview rumbles on. He is a man who is proud of his achievements, unrepentant in his beliefs

We say our good-byes and now know I have three specific points I need to check. Here they are:

• Did Cllr Lines mix up asylum seekers with illegal immigrants when he called the former ‘scumbags’ five years ago?

• Does Birmingham City Council literally offer no homes to asylum seekers because ‘private landlords’ have the government contracts?

• Did Margaret Thatcher really want to re invest council house sales income back into public housing as John Lines said?

I decide to check these comments out. It is only fair - and it’s only fair that I call Cllr Lines back for him to comment on what I have found out.

First is whether Mr Lines mixed up the term asylum seeker with refugees or even illegal economic migrants.

I ask for guidance on definitions. The city council says:

An asylum seeker is a person who is given temporary admission into the UK whilst the Home Office (UK Border Agency) consider their application for refugee status. A refugee is someone who is given leave to remain in the UK because they have shown that they have a well founded fear of persecution and therefore cannot safely return to their home country.

I re-check these definitions with the UK Border Agency and the Refugee Council. They are similar. And I don’t think I am confused.

I phone Cllr Lines and put this point to him. Has he mixed things up?

‘A refugee is someone who is running from a fascist regime. Asylum seekers are for the most part economic migrants,’ he said. This view does not gel with his own council’s definition and he agrees that many people confuse the terms. So, to me, his ‘scumbag’ comment may not refer to the legal definition of what an asylum seeker is. He actually meant economic migrants.

Secondly: is the councillor’s statement accurate that only ‘private landlords’ handle asylum seekers’ housing in Birmingham? He didn’t mention the local authority’s role. The city council says in a formal and careful statement:

"The UK Border Agency is responsible for providing accommodation and support to people seeking asylum (asking for refugee status). It meets this responsibility by contracting, mostly with private landlords.

"The council does not directly allocate homes to asylum seekers and they are not entitled to council tenancies. The council does however, let a small proportion of its 65,000 council properties to the National Asylum Support Service. 158 flats are let to the National Asylum Support Service, who pay the council for their use."

So…Birmingham City Council does have an input after all - 158 homes go to asylum seekers through the National Asylum Support Service. And that organisation is hardly a ‘private landlord.’

I put this to Cllr Lines.

He acknowledges that ‘a small number’ of council flats do go to NASS. He agrees that NASS is not a private agency. But he stresses that the contract with NASS goes back well before he was head of housing.

Lastly, did Mrs Thatcher really want to put back council house sales’ receipts back into local authority housing? Did she have ‘a vision’ as Cllr Lines says?

I call an old friend who was a Westminster correspondent back in the 1980s.

‘No, it was never Mrs Thatcher’s intention to put money back into local housing. She was in effect the government at the time. So if she didn’t want things to happen, they didn’t.’ he explained.

I call an expert in public housing who was a select committee advisor in the 1980s investigating council house sales. ‘I would be extremely dubious about this.’ he said. ‘Mrs Thatcher wanted to dismantle public housing and reduce it.’

I put this to Mr Lines.

He is adamant that this was Thatcher’s vision I say there is no documentation alluding to this intent.. He sticks to his guns. ‘It was Margaret Hilda Thatcher’s idea.’ he said.

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