Comment from Parliamentary Spokesperson Farooq Qureshi

9.00.00am GMT Mon 9th Mar 2009

Parliamentary Spokesman Farooq Qureshi

Council tenants in Waltham Forest are being penalised by the Labour Government's decision to raise rents by 5.8 percent - nearly double the inflation rate.Your Lib Dem councillors are calling on Gordon Brown to reconsider this decision as it undoes all their efforts in keeping the Council Tax down. Senior Liberal Democrat MPs called a parliamentary meeting to debate this rent rise in which it was claimed that the local council tenants were being 'systematically mugged'. Neither of the two Labour MPs, Cohen and Gerrard spoke at this meeting despite the local Labour Party's campaign to distance itself from the rent rise. Farooq Qureshi says:"My colleagues and I will be arranging an urgent meeting with the Housing Minister to try and get this decision reversed".