News

The controversial proposal to transfer Glasgow City Council’s housing stock to the Glasgow Housing Agency (GHA) may be ruled as illegal and in breach of European competition laws.

The European parliament in Brussels has been petitioned by Mike Daily, principal solicitor with Govan Law Centre, and Colin Deans, a council house tenant.  The petition claims that in proposing transfer to the GHA only the Scottish executive did not offer choice or introduce competition to the £4 billion move.  Further, offers by the Treasury to wipe out the city’s housing debt and an interest free loan of £300 million from the executive to address GHA’s cash flow problems, both conditional on the tenants voting in favour of the transfer, are described as “preferential” and in breach of the laws.

Daily describes the petition as “a deal breaker for the whole project” if the European parliament agrees possibly resulting in direct intervention by the European Commission and bring the proposal to a halt.  Deans said:  “Without the massive taxpayer subsidy the GHA will have to shut up shop.”

Sean Clerkin, chair of the Glasgow Campaign Against Stock Transfer, said:  “We believe the executive is flouting EU competition law by throwing public money at a private company which is essentially a monopoly.  It is at least questionable and quite possibly illegal.”

The petition is submitted to Brussels as Glasgow City Council housing tenants end the first week of voting on the proposed transfer.  Official estimates indicate that around half of the 80,000 tenants have already returned their votes.  The result of the ballot is still expected to be announced on 5 April since action by the European parliament will take months before a decision is made.

A spokesperson for the Scottish executive refused to comment till the executive’s lawyers had examined the petition.