Angela Rayner plans to reform Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy policy, which allows most council tenants to buy their council home at a discount, to ensure the stock of social housing is not depleted.
The deputy prime minister and housing secretary reportedly plans to slash Right to Buy discounts by two-thirds in an unprecedented attempt to stop council house tenants from buying their own homes.
Under plans to be unveiled in the Budget, the discount of 70% available to those seeking to buy their council house would be cut to about 25%.
At the same time, Rayner is to more than triple the amount of time people need to have lived in their home to qualify, from three years to 10.
Last year, 10,896 homes were sold through Right to Buy while only 3,447 were replaced, resulting in a net loss of 7,449. Since 1991, the scheme has resulted in the loss of 24,000 social homes, according to official figures.
Under Right to Buy, which was introduced in 1980 as one of Mrs Thatcher’s flagship reforms, the government sells off council housing at discounts of up to £102,400 to sitting tenants, rising to £136,400 in London.
Rayner acquired her council house using the Right to Buy scheme in 2007 with a 25% discount, making a reported £48,500 profit when selling it, albeit eight years later.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson recently said: “Right to Buy remains an important route for council housing tenants to be able to buy their own home but it’s scandalous that only a third of council homes sold under the scheme have been replaced since 2012.
“Increasing protections on newly-built social homes will be looked at as part of our wider review but there are no plans to abolish the Right to Buy scheme.”
Finally, they get it.
I am not sure where the tiny 24,000 social homes loss comes from. Figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Dwelling stock: by tenure, Great Britain (historical series) 1970 – 2017 & UK dwelling Stock, ONS, 2018 shows 6.5 million UK council homes in 1980 and 2mill in 2020. So does that mean nearly 4.5mill social homes have been built by local authorities?
There are 1.3 million households on social housing waiting lists so there is a very long way to go to solve the crisis. £12bill a year is spent on housing benefit, to solve the housing crisis would take £12bill a year for 10 years to build 1.5mill homes. This is classic short termisim by politicians ending up costing the nation more and causing countless misery to millions.
Great job guys and I doff my hat to the 5 year Govt terms preventing anyone thinking long term.
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I do think that Housing policy should be cross-party, and not changeable on a whim. That’s part of the reason that everything is in such a mess, is because it is a political football, booted all over the place and passed to whomever is the current favourite…
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We need a multi-decade housing and infrastructure plan that looks to address the significant deficit we currently have.
Interestingly, the funding for this can be generated “in-house” by the government.
Each country in the world has an “asset value” and a “national net worth”. If the government embarks on a programme of taxpayer owned infrastructure extension and improvement together with a housebuilding programme that increases these numbers. It also increases GDP.
Building roads, hospitals, schools, parks, and etcetera would benefit everyone and would increase the relative value of the country.
Bizarrely, our government has spent the last 40 years selling everything off and NOT investing in the country. The roads are terrible, schools are falling down, as are the hospitals.
The taxpayer no longer owns our water supply organisations and customers are being fleeced while the water delivery network has been left to rack and ruin.
We sold off our energy supply to the lowest bidders. EDF Energy, one of the big 5, which is wholly owned by the French taxpayer, was able to use our high charges to subsidise the cost of electricity to keep charges down in France. If only we hadn’t sold our energy supply to foreign investors!!!
Having a sensible twenty-five year infrastructure investment plan seems to be a somewhat obvious choice.
And in the process we must accept that project costs increase. The furore over the cost increase of HS2 was NONSENSE…
The original projected cost was ALWAYS too low.
Over any 12 year period in the UK property prices tend to double – therefore the cost of the land will also double.
RPI averages to 5.37% per annum, meaning that the cost of materials over a 13 year period will also roughly double.
Wages do increase over time but have stagnated until recently.
Saying that the project cost today is £1billion means that in 15 years time, when the project is complete, it will have cost at least £2billion.
Then you got project drift and project creep where specifications change and get upgraded along the way which will cause an even bigger increase in the costs.
These are all well known and understood. Unfortunately it’s very easy for some to get very very cross about the obvious.
Having an infrastructure plan that deals with these issues upfront, transparently and honestly whilst avoiding partisan bickering would drastically transform our country.
I just discovered that the roads in Iceland are all heated to keep ice from forming on them.
Can you imagine such a thing in the UK? I know it’s not necessary, but could you imagine the continual flip-flop of government being able to administer a build programme that included something equivalent?
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