Liberal Democrat MPs have led a parliamentary debate criticising the Labour government’s decision to raise rent levels for hard-pressed council tenants.

Despite the economic crisis, rent payments for Council tenants in Waltham Forest will go up by 5.8%.  The move has been criticised by Liberal Democrats on the Council, with local Leader John Macklin calling on Gordon Brown to “seriously reconsider his lack of practical support for our local Council tenants”.

Now senior Liberal Democrats have led a debate amongst MPs in which it was claimed that the local council tenants were being “systematically mugged” by the Government as a result of how the housing subsidy works.

Liberal Democrat spokesperson Sarah Teather MP said:

“The whole system is predicated on the Government’s starting model, which forces councils to put rents up.

“Many council tenants pay substantially higher rents than one would expect.  Throughout the country, council tenants are falling into severe arrears.  Some 80,000 tenants in London are in arrears, and 11,000 of them have been threatened with eviction, underlining the point that the rent increases are felt very keenly by people on very low incomes.”

Neither of the two local Labour MPs spoke in support of the Liberal Democrats criticisms during the debate.

Click here to read the full debate.