Hello lovely people!
As Lotte so brilliantly told you in their prior post, we have been away in fields in various places across the country. This has included adventures to Earth First camp, Dance Camp Wales, Women In Tune and the Radical Routes Summer gathering, to plug but a few. We're all glad to be back in our own beds.
And they're still the same beds, because we still don't have a new house yet. Sad times indeed. The search continues, and so do various other machinations of the co-op process. We have another secondary rules workshop (click here to see the secondary rules of an established housing co-op) planned for next week. We also have a repeat viewing of The Tardis and a viewing of another interesting property on the cards next week, so we're not just sitting here twiddling our thumbs. Well, we're managing to squeeze that in too.
We had our first meeting in quite a while this evening, and although it was slightly fraught (tense issues were discussed), we slipped back into consensus decision-making and honest discussion in a way which felt affirming and brilliantly familiar. For those of you with a dread of meetings, I cannot recommend consensus techniques enough. I miss them when I'm in meetings where they're not used. Go and have a read about them, and see if they could make your meetings less arduous.
Right, I'm off to be a Viking for the weekend with this shady lot. Although I'd like to think that swapping modern society for a societal structure from a thousand years ago counts as radical social change, I have to admit that really, I just like dressing up.
We'll post soon about our house viewings and progress on the secondary rules. Fun times, even if we don't have new beds yet.
- Hannah
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Saturday, 13 August 2011
*honkshu* (by Lotte)
Our co-op is slightly on hold a little bit. Due to festival season (commonly known as Summer in colloquial language), and therefore many of our members being in fields in far distant lands, sometimes as far as England, it is difficult to be looking around houses. Especially Tardis houses that are technically not at all for sale.
I can assure you that we are not completely asleep, though. I don't feel able to speak for the others, but for me, I am mostly banging on with the gender activism. My latest exciting thing is convincing the UK Deed Poll Service to offer a gender-neutral title on their documents, thus convincing hopefully many more organisations and companies that genderqueer people do exist and won't accept Miss or Mr or whatever.
I also somehow ended up in Lesbilicious.
Leave a comment if you want a signed photo, people.
Friday, 1 July 2011
Starting as we mean to go on...
We have already written the bulk of our secondary rules, and the gist of most of them is that it is the co-op's responsibility to help and encourage it's members to be socially aware and responsible people. Part of this means finding ways to help each other to get involved in things we may find challenging - whether that be doing the co-op's accounts or attending a demonstration - rather than admonishing people for not taking part.
Today this manifested as us going on a picnic in order to discuss the concept of social change. A tricky subject, and thus best accompanied by a tasty lunch and a nice view. As members of Radical Routes (RR) we have promised to be involved in radical social change, but what this really means is a hot topic of debate both within RR and our own co-op. Personally I feel like I have an understanding of the concept of social change, but one person's radicalism is another person's every day, and arriving at a working definition is fraught with difficulty.
To try to work out what radical social change means to us, and how we can help each other to do more of it, we took ourselves up to Rosehill Quarry, assembled lunch on a bench and tried to get our heads around the matter. We used one of our favourite meeting tools - the go-round - to find out what it is that interests us as a group. Queer issues were at the forefront, closely followed by environmental ones. Parenting also got a look-in. We pondered whether our aims involving these things were radical, how we might support each other in campaigning on these fronts, and what we could work on as a group to provide a focus to our activities.
What struck me about these discussions was that they come from a solid foundation of wanting to support each other in our own interests. We thought through ways to use the co-op structure as a basis for forming a wider group, and devised ways in which to lend weight to each others' plans.
Predictably, some of these plans involve cake.
What we end up doing is still open to discussion, but we have ideas, and know that we will have others to help us. We each stated what we were prepared to do, and we have a full spectrum from letter-writers to those keen on more direct action. Change takes all sorts.
Sometimes I think about the notion of the housing co-op, and it seems like a lot of work for somewhere to live. I already have somewhere to live, and so does everyone else in the co-op. We could stay where we are and save a lot of time spent in meetings. But in the short time we have existed, and without us at any point owning a house or even all living in one place, we have already become much more than just a group of housemates. We cook and buy food together, share childcare, help each other with all manner of projects. We are learning about consensus decision-making, non-violent communication, and the compromises and strength that co-operation brings.
Having the co-op as a focus enables us to do far more than just dream of living in a non-landlord-controlled property. I don't know if any of this counts as radical, but our society would certainly be changed for the better if we were more able to share, work together and resolve issues peacefully.
As a rather over-used, but still true, Gandhi quote goes: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world".
Hannah
Today this manifested as us going on a picnic in order to discuss the concept of social change. A tricky subject, and thus best accompanied by a tasty lunch and a nice view. As members of Radical Routes (RR) we have promised to be involved in radical social change, but what this really means is a hot topic of debate both within RR and our own co-op. Personally I feel like I have an understanding of the concept of social change, but one person's radicalism is another person's every day, and arriving at a working definition is fraught with difficulty.
To try to work out what radical social change means to us, and how we can help each other to do more of it, we took ourselves up to Rosehill Quarry, assembled lunch on a bench and tried to get our heads around the matter. We used one of our favourite meeting tools - the go-round - to find out what it is that interests us as a group. Queer issues were at the forefront, closely followed by environmental ones. Parenting also got a look-in. We pondered whether our aims involving these things were radical, how we might support each other in campaigning on these fronts, and what we could work on as a group to provide a focus to our activities.
What struck me about these discussions was that they come from a solid foundation of wanting to support each other in our own interests. We thought through ways to use the co-op structure as a basis for forming a wider group, and devised ways in which to lend weight to each others' plans.
Predictably, some of these plans involve cake.
What we end up doing is still open to discussion, but we have ideas, and know that we will have others to help us. We each stated what we were prepared to do, and we have a full spectrum from letter-writers to those keen on more direct action. Change takes all sorts.
Sometimes I think about the notion of the housing co-op, and it seems like a lot of work for somewhere to live. I already have somewhere to live, and so does everyone else in the co-op. We could stay where we are and save a lot of time spent in meetings. But in the short time we have existed, and without us at any point owning a house or even all living in one place, we have already become much more than just a group of housemates. We cook and buy food together, share childcare, help each other with all manner of projects. We are learning about consensus decision-making, non-violent communication, and the compromises and strength that co-operation brings.
Having the co-op as a focus enables us to do far more than just dream of living in a non-landlord-controlled property. I don't know if any of this counts as radical, but our society would certainly be changed for the better if we were more able to share, work together and resolve issues peacefully.
As a rather over-used, but still true, Gandhi quote goes: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world".
Hannah
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
House Viewing: The Tardis and Labyrinth
Since Mould Mansion we have not had a house to view which in any way fitted our size/price criteria. We've been to look at some nonetheless, but always with the knowledge of their inappropriateness in the backs of our minds. Sad times, indeed.
The other day Finn and I had a borrowed baby sling to try out, and so we went on a trawl of the estate agents to see if there was anything interesting about. We drew a blank, but a few hours later one of the agents rang saying he had a house that had just come on that would suit, and that the owners lived in the same street and were thinking of selling their house too, and did we want the particulars?
Er, yes!
When they came through they were incomplete, but very intriguing. Both houses are within our price range, and have enough rooms and random bits of space for communal good times as well. In fact, there seemed to be far too many rooms for what look, from the front, like quite narrow terraced houses. Oh yes, and one of them has a first floor conservatory, too. Random.
And so, today we embarked on a very exciting house viewing of these two properties; the Tardis, and Labyrinth.
First, The Tardis*. This house looks a little different to others on the street, both inside and out. The owner has had great fun moving walls about inside, creating an awesomely wide and light hallway. There are 7 bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, 3 bathrooms and an awesome basement with two windows. It also has a small garden, conservatory, a sun terrace on the second floor, and a large study area on the landing. The basement is enormous, and gets extra points for being the only one I've ever been in that doesn't stink of damp. In fact, it didn't smell at all - and neither did the rest of the house. A house in Swansea with no visible/smellable damp? You can imagine how impressed we were.
This house is different to others we've looked at on many levels. For one, it appears to have been reasonably well-loved and looked after. The owner seemed quite proud of it, and he didn't seem like a blagger, which made a nice change. The house felt; well, it felt like a home, and that is something I know our house will feel like. It was hard not to like it. It doesn't have any massive bedrooms or any teeny tiny ones. We'd all get an OK-ish amount of personal space, and lots and lots of varied communal space. Whether this suits everyone is still up for discussion.
We next went down the road to Labyrinth. Despite their similar size and location, the two houses couldn't have felt more different. Labyrinth has been HMOdified**, which is to say that every door is a fire door and thus shut all the time, that there are numerous extra internal walls making even large spaces feel small and boxy, and that the kitchen smelt weird. Such is the way of the HMO.
It's currently split into two flats, with the bottom flat having a huge living room, small kitchen and bathroom in the basement, and then 3 bedrooms on the ground floor. The top flat has 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and bathroom, and a living room. The room sizes are more varied here, but there weren't any absurdly small rooms, just some a little smaller than we'd like. There was a bigger garden here, but no other extraneous areas.
Were we to live here, we'd have the whole ground floor as communal space, which would be awesome. In The Tardis the space is more split up into different areas, but there's also more of it. It's so hard to work out which is more important sometimes, but such is the way of buying houses. We are always trying to think of what will work best for the long-term of the co-op, and that does mean making tricky judgements.
After the viewing we went back to Cassian's for a debrief/squeebrief***. This involved, amongst other things, deciding the houses' names (for bloggity purposes) and determining that choosing between them was somewhat akin to a fight between David Tennant and David Bowie. Cue rubbish artwork.
Less importantly, rough floor plans were drawn and pros and cons debated, and it turns out that we see merit in them both. We're going to go for second viewings, and try to get more detailed measurements for The Tardis, which had some hilariously inaccurate ones in the particulars. We're going to do some investigating of market values, and re-work the business plan to see how it goes with both houses. We're going to have a meeting; the first of many, if we decide to go for one or the other.
As Joe so pointedly said, here we go again.
Hannah
* It's not only named for the TARDIS because it's bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside, but also that if you painted it blue, it would have a slight similarity. Honest.
** I made this word up today, and had to use it :)
*** Another word I made up today. Clearly I'm on a roll.
The other day Finn and I had a borrowed baby sling to try out, and so we went on a trawl of the estate agents to see if there was anything interesting about. We drew a blank, but a few hours later one of the agents rang saying he had a house that had just come on that would suit, and that the owners lived in the same street and were thinking of selling their house too, and did we want the particulars?
Er, yes!
When they came through they were incomplete, but very intriguing. Both houses are within our price range, and have enough rooms and random bits of space for communal good times as well. In fact, there seemed to be far too many rooms for what look, from the front, like quite narrow terraced houses. Oh yes, and one of them has a first floor conservatory, too. Random.
And so, today we embarked on a very exciting house viewing of these two properties; the Tardis, and Labyrinth.
First, The Tardis*. This house looks a little different to others on the street, both inside and out. The owner has had great fun moving walls about inside, creating an awesomely wide and light hallway. There are 7 bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, 3 bathrooms and an awesome basement with two windows. It also has a small garden, conservatory, a sun terrace on the second floor, and a large study area on the landing. The basement is enormous, and gets extra points for being the only one I've ever been in that doesn't stink of damp. In fact, it didn't smell at all - and neither did the rest of the house. A house in Swansea with no visible/smellable damp? You can imagine how impressed we were.
This house is different to others we've looked at on many levels. For one, it appears to have been reasonably well-loved and looked after. The owner seemed quite proud of it, and he didn't seem like a blagger, which made a nice change. The house felt; well, it felt like a home, and that is something I know our house will feel like. It was hard not to like it. It doesn't have any massive bedrooms or any teeny tiny ones. We'd all get an OK-ish amount of personal space, and lots and lots of varied communal space. Whether this suits everyone is still up for discussion.
We next went down the road to Labyrinth. Despite their similar size and location, the two houses couldn't have felt more different. Labyrinth has been HMOdified**, which is to say that every door is a fire door and thus shut all the time, that there are numerous extra internal walls making even large spaces feel small and boxy, and that the kitchen smelt weird. Such is the way of the HMO.
It's currently split into two flats, with the bottom flat having a huge living room, small kitchen and bathroom in the basement, and then 3 bedrooms on the ground floor. The top flat has 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and bathroom, and a living room. The room sizes are more varied here, but there weren't any absurdly small rooms, just some a little smaller than we'd like. There was a bigger garden here, but no other extraneous areas.
Were we to live here, we'd have the whole ground floor as communal space, which would be awesome. In The Tardis the space is more split up into different areas, but there's also more of it. It's so hard to work out which is more important sometimes, but such is the way of buying houses. We are always trying to think of what will work best for the long-term of the co-op, and that does mean making tricky judgements.
After the viewing we went back to Cassian's for a debrief/squeebrief***. This involved, amongst other things, deciding the houses' names (for bloggity purposes) and determining that choosing between them was somewhat akin to a fight between David Tennant and David Bowie. Cue rubbish artwork.
Less importantly, rough floor plans were drawn and pros and cons debated, and it turns out that we see merit in them both. We're going to go for second viewings, and try to get more detailed measurements for The Tardis, which had some hilariously inaccurate ones in the particulars. We're going to do some investigating of market values, and re-work the business plan to see how it goes with both houses. We're going to have a meeting; the first of many, if we decide to go for one or the other.
As Joe so pointedly said, here we go again.
Hannah
* It's not only named for the TARDIS because it's bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside, but also that if you painted it blue, it would have a slight similarity. Honest.
** I made this word up today, and had to use it :)
*** Another word I made up today. Clearly I'm on a roll.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
MOVING HOUSE MAKE HULK SMASH ANGRY
So, I am moving house again, for will be the 4th time in just over 2 years. This makes me sad.
Mattie! I hear you cry, what does this have to do with us? We are here to read whimsical exposition on mould and Babies, not hear you whinge about your personal housing situation! Well PAH! I tell you. This is about social inequality, unstable housing and the benefits of stable, mutually organised housing managed by tennants. So there. Listen to my whinging, oh invisible audience.
The situation is this.
My current landlord has issued myself and my 2 housemates 2 months notice to scarper and find somewhere new. In a way this is nice, because in all my 8 months of living there I have <ILLEGALITY WARNING> not been on the contract. While partly because of disorganisation, mostly this is because I cannot find £160 of non refundable 'going on the contract' money. The only housing security I have had is that my housemate is awesome and not some form of baddie.
Swansea has very odd HMO rules that mean that should you want to live anywhere near anything ever you have to be less than two households. Otherwise HMO housing. Lovely, expensive student housing, in short. So far, the estate agents that we have spoken to have either said 'no, we don't do small HMO properties', 'we have houses but they're filthy' or 'we have a good house, but you'll have to pretend that there are less of you than there are'.
Due to being on 16 hours a week I will have to claim housing benefit. This means that upon moving into the next house I will need to pay contract fees and a bond. For living in a house. How demanding am I.
Now, this may just be me, but as a bond round here can be up to and beyond £300, contract fees £160 and a months rent around £180-250 before bill seems a bit steep for somewhere to live. You know, living, that thing that people do.
Start a housing co-op, take over the rental market. Make sure that I am part of the last generation that haemorrhages money it doesn't have into private pockets for the privilage of a roof and 4 walls.
But of course, private rental landlords, follow the advice below.
 |
| Artists impression of the Author. |
Mattie! I hear you cry, what does this have to do with us? We are here to read whimsical exposition on mould and Babies, not hear you whinge about your personal housing situation! Well PAH! I tell you. This is about social inequality, unstable housing and the benefits of stable, mutually organised housing managed by tennants. So there. Listen to my whinging, oh invisible audience.
The situation is this.
 |
| Well, are you? |
My current landlord has issued myself and my 2 housemates 2 months notice to scarper and find somewhere new. In a way this is nice, because in all my 8 months of living there I have <ILLEGALITY WARNING> not been on the contract. While partly because of disorganisation, mostly this is because I cannot find £160 of non refundable 'going on the contract' money. The only housing security I have had is that my housemate is awesome and not some form of baddie.
 |
| My housemate - Not Skeletor |
Swansea has very odd HMO rules that mean that should you want to live anywhere near anything ever you have to be less than two households. Otherwise HMO housing. Lovely, expensive student housing, in short. So far, the estate agents that we have spoken to have either said 'no, we don't do small HMO properties', 'we have houses but they're filthy' or 'we have a good house, but you'll have to pretend that there are less of you than there are'.
Due to being on 16 hours a week I will have to claim housing benefit. This means that upon moving into the next house I will need to pay contract fees and a bond. For living in a house. How demanding am I.
 |
| Not this demanding though, God kids! |
Now, this may just be me, but as a bond round here can be up to and beyond £300, contract fees £160 and a months rent around £180-250 before bill seems a bit steep for somewhere to live. You know, living, that thing that people do.
Start a housing co-op, take over the rental market. Make sure that I am part of the last generation that haemorrhages money it doesn't have into private pockets for the privilage of a roof and 4 walls.
But of course, private rental landlords, follow the advice below.
 . | ||||||
| Bad Advice Chimps |
Monday, 23 May 2011
Being the Change (by Lotte/Cassian)
The thing is, I don't really feel like I have a choice. (Technically I do, in that I could just lie back and stop trying to have basic rights, but there we are.)
I'm genderqueer. I feel a bit weird saying it out loud even now! Everyone has a different definition of this word, but for me it means that I feel like I don't have a gender at all. My preferred pronoun for myself is singular "they/them" and I'm happy with anything that's not he, she or it. Don't get me started on a genderqueer wardrobe when you're committed to secondhand clothing, you're on benefits and you've got a chronic illness that prevents shopping.
I did a Google image search for "Queer bra" to break up
the enormous block of text that is this post.
This is my favourite of the results.
No, I don't understand either. Why are they lying on a car?
So, all that is fine. Having worked out yet another thing that is freaky about myself, I feel relieved for having worked it out. But when people say things like this are a choice, I want to stab them with forks (perhaps a Genderfork?). And when people imply that I would want to choose it in order to be difficult, I want to stab them with rusty forks. To do so may count as social change, and on their part it may count as suicide to disrespect me in this way, but despite these motivations I hold back. I think time spent not stabbing people with rusty forks maybe should count towards my social change.
People who're out and proud speak of coming out as being not one big event, but as infinite smaller ones. The same is true of being genderqueer, only more so, because I have to come out to many people more than once. I'm female assigned at birth (FAAB, dahling), and basically look (at the moment) like a tomboy. I'm really trying to look less like a woman, but most people don't realise that there's anything aside from man and woman. Upon meeting anyone I'll be seeing often, or who needs to know these things, I will explain that I'm not a woman but I'm not a man either. I will explain the pronouns, and about not using "she." My new acquaintance will appear to understand and be sympathetic. Some time later, unless the person is queer-savvy or particularly thoughtful and respectful, they will use "she" or refer to me by my feminine birth name.
My bank insists on me having a gendered title on record and on all correspondence. Don't you think it's strange that there's one title for men, three titles for women dependent on marital status, i.e.: relation to a man, but NONE at all for people whose gender is unclear? In written communication, that seems pretty lax to me. I have asked to change my name from GenderedName to Cassian Lotte, but they refuse because I want either the title Misc or no title at all. (Edited later to add: They've now changed my name, and this is some kind of awesome stuff they say about titles.)
When I go to a restaurant or cafe, chances are there won't be bathroom facilities I can use unless I want to wave the disabled card. Underwear for FAAB people assumes that I want breasts to be big and obvious, or at least supported, but I want mine to be not there at all. (I had to spend a lot of money on a chest-binder from overseas.)
For something like gender that's so basic to human life and yet irrationally has so much meaning, every moment of my life is radical. Every time someone makes an assumption about me I am committing an act of radical social change to speak up and be myself. Why yes, you're right, I do have a vagina. What does that have to do with what we're talking about? Oh, I see, it means that the clothing I buy, the TV shows I watch, the people I fall in love with and the food I eat is affected by my vagina. Thanks, I'm glad you let me know, because here was me ignoring my vagina in my day-to-day life. And now I can tell people about my genitals through the act of dressing, watching TV, falling in love and eating. How kind of you to tell me over and over again when we've only known each other for five minutes.
Fortunately, there is a bright side.
The phone rings. It seems to be a telemarketer.
Me: "Hello?"
Them: "Hello, is this the lady of the house?"
Me: "Not exactly. Who's speaking, please?"
Them: "Is your mother or father in?"
Me: "I'm 24, I live alone. Who is this, please?"
Them: "Could I speak to the lady or the man of the house please?"
Me: "There are no men or women living here. WHO IS THIS?"
*beeeeeeeep* as they hang up.
I'm accosted in the street by a Christian who wants to talk to me about God.
Them: "Come into this church and listen to my talk! You'd be very welcome."
Me: "Thanks for the offer, but I am Pagan and very happy in my faith! I hope the talk goes well, though."
Them: "Even more reason to come on in!"
Me: "Well, I'm not exactly resistant to hearing what other people have to say, but why not give me a bit of an overview before I head in, so I can decide if it's something I might like to hear?"
Them: "Okay! Well, finding a common ground might help. Do you feel that there are some things, some acts, that are fundamentally immoral?"
Me: "No, I think we as human beings ascribe morality to meaningless acts."
Them: "But there are things that everyone can agree are wrong. Take, for example, adultery."
Me: "I'm polyamorous."
Them: "But that's deceit!"
Me: "No, I'm very honest in my relationships. A basic part of polyamory is the idea that everyone understands what's going on and everyone is consenting. There's no deceit. You could argue that there's less cheating than in monogamy, though that's not always true."
Them: "But you must, in your lifestyle, feel that sleeping with two people is dishonest, and you can never truly love someone and be happy."
Me: "You can, but for the most part that doesn't apply to me. I'm asexual."
Them (with anger/disbelief): "So you're polyamorous and you don't have sex??"
Me: "My sex life is none of your business, but for asexuals in general, relationships are very much not at all about sex."
Them: "Hang on, talk to this man about religion."
They then refer me to someone who proceeds to tell me that I am doing everything wrong and I am wrong as a person, that I shouldn't want to be the way I am naturally, that I can change who I am, and that his entire way of life is correct and right and good because he believes it is and that makes it true.
It feels like a battle, but it's one I'm happy to fight, because it's harder and more painful to pretend to be a straight, sexual, monogamous woman.
Edited to add:
I was joking earlier at Golem HQ about how this post is a block of text that needs pictures, so I added the photo above that I found on Google Image Search for "queer bra" - it was my favourite result. :D However, I also found this excellent Autostraddle article on buying bras when you're a great big queer. I thought you should know.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
HMO Progress. Hmogress?
A small update on the campaign by Friendly Housing Action to fix the Housing Act and make it so that fully mutual co-ops don't need to have HMO licenses. Basically the good news is that the government has yet again admitted that co-ops should be exempt, and that it intends to fix the issue. They don't want to open up any unintentional loopholes in the law for other types of landlord/organisation though, so further advice is going to be sought about how to word it, etc. Although this doesn't mean the battle is over, as I imagine a tremendous number of small, yet important, things slip through the cracks at Westminster, it is a significant achievement and Friendly Housing Action deserve a massive round of applause for their work.
Full text from Hansard*:
"Andrew Stunell: My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr
Leech) has tabled new clause 26, which relates to a specific situation for
fully mutual housing co-operatives. By a quirk of the legislation, they are
caught by the houses in multiple occupation requirement for licensing and,
sometimes, planning permission. The Department has been lobbied by the
Friendly Housing Action campaign group to secure an exemption for fully
mutual housing co-operatives, and I am very sympathetic to the campaign, as
such organisations were never intended to be caught by the licensing
provisions.
We have to be careful to ensure that in granting an exemption we do not
inadvertently allow other categories to slip through the loophole, so I am
asking for further advice on how we might achieve that. I hope to return to
the issue at a later stage, so I hope that my hon. Friends will not feel the
need to press new clause 26 to a Division. "
This is a signifiant step forward for the campaign. However, we now need to
carefully manage the passage of the amendment through the Lords. We should
probably hold a meeting during the next gathering to work through this.
* I'm hoping to get a video of this glorious moment, which I will embed as soon as I have it.
Full text from Hansard*:
"Andrew Stunell: My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr
Leech) has tabled new clause 26, which relates to a specific situation for
fully mutual housing co-operatives. By a quirk of the legislation, they are
caught by the houses in multiple occupation requirement for licensing and,
sometimes, planning permission. The Department has been lobbied by the
Friendly Housing Action campaign group to secure an exemption for fully
mutual housing co-operatives, and I am very sympathetic to the campaign, as
such organisations were never intended to be caught by the licensing
provisions.
We have to be careful to ensure that in granting an exemption we do not
inadvertently allow other categories to slip through the loophole, so I am
asking for further advice on how we might achieve that. I hope to return to
the issue at a later stage, so I hope that my hon. Friends will not feel the
need to press new clause 26 to a Division. "
This is a signifiant step forward for the campaign. However, we now need to
carefully manage the passage of the amendment through the Lords. We should
probably hold a meeting during the next gathering to work through this.
* I'm hoping to get a video of this glorious moment, which I will embed as soon as I have it.
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