Conservatives seek to extend right to buy
The Conservatives would like to extend the right to buy, the shadow housing minister has said.
Speaking at a hustings event organised by Inside Housing, Grant Shapps said the Tories would extend the practice ‘in an ideal world’, and that right to buy could be a ‘win-win situation’ if the cash from sales was spent on building new affordable housing.
He said: ‘I think we all understand that right to buy is one of the most revolutionary social policies. It actually gave a lot of people the ability to own their own home.
‘It did some good, but where it falls down is if we do not build more homes with the cash.’
His opponents on the panel agreed the money raised from right to buy sales should be given back to councils to encourage more house building. Housing minister John Healey pointed to reforms to the housing revenue account, which would mean councils could keep the full income from rent on any new homes they built.
However, Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrat housing spokeswoman, said: ‘I am not in favour of extending right to buy to housing associations.’
On Sunday, Scottish health minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish National Party’s annual conference that the Scottish Government would scrap the right to buy for all new tenants.
She said banning social tenants from buying their homes would prevent increasing pressure on waiting lists.
‘That is why I believe that the right to buy has had its day. We will bring forward proposals to abolish the right to buy for all new tenants,’ she said.
‘Over the next decade, these proposals will safeguard up to 18,000 houses, providing homes for rent for those who need them most.’
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Readers' comments (37)
sharon | 20/10/2009 9:50 am
If the Conservative do extend the right to buy then it is to be hoped that any tenant taking it up does a survey!
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Joe Halewood | 20/10/2009 11:37 am
"Grant Shapps said the Tories would extend the practice ‘in an ideal world’, and that right to buy could be a ‘win-win situation’ if the cash from sales was spent on building new affordable housing."
So selling one property at a discounted rate releases funds to buy the same does it? A £200k house sold at say 20% discount releases £160k to build new - Can £160k buy a £200k value then Mr Shapps. This is sheer bloody lunacy and economic madness fuelled by political dogma that will only exacerbate the supply crisis in social housing. Selling off the family silver to afford ones highly dubious political preferences is what this is.
If Scotland expects the ban on RTB will preserve 1,800 houses per year in Scotland what is the equivalent for England - 10,000 houses per year, 20,000?
Anyone expect 10 -20,000 new social housing units per year being built over next 10 years - No thought not! So all this will mean is that the private sector will need to provide a higher percentage of houses at a massive cost to the HB budget and the PSBR. A further increase in the use of PSL stock for homeless cases as well adding further to the HB costs and generally poorer accommodation for the most vulnerable - All of these manifestations will come to pass as a result of leaving the RTB as it is never mind extending it.
But why let that nightmare scenario get in the way of a nice soundbite, potential vote winner Mr Shapps even if just the slightest scratch under the surface shows the policy is bankrupt and makes anyone advocating it an incompetent buffoon.
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kass | 20/10/2009 11:54 am
And exactly who is going to buy what anyway?... Anyone who believes that cash from social stock sales will go into building new social homes has not learnt anything from the past... Either this cash will be minimal or any larger amount will be wasted in the added burocracy rather than in actual homes being built... Both conserative and liberals have lost a chance to ovetake labour by not following up the Scots initiative to get rid of RTB.
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Michael read | 20/10/2009 12:48 pm
"So selling one property at a discounted rate releases funds to buy the same does it? A £200k house sold at say 20% discount releases £160k to build new - Can £160k buy a £200k value then Mr Shapps. This is sheer bloody lunacy and economic madness fuelled by political dogma that will only exacerbate the supply crisis in social housing. Selling off the family silver to afford ones highly dubious political preferences is what this is."
When you find "sheer bloody ludicrosy" in the copy and a whole bunch of cliches following behind you know Joe Halewood will be at the end of it.
That £200,000 will unlock £160,000 creating another housing unit. The re-introduction of RTB is a useful mechanism for building more houses.
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Stephen West | 20/10/2009 2:09 pm
I think Joe Halewood is totally missing the point about Right To Buy, firstly Local Authorities will be selling off old housing stock which they would no longer need to maintain to free up cash to build new homes, that's if they are allowed to. Secondly the housing is not lost as someone will still be living in it i.e. the tenant who buys the property. Children of many social tenants never manage to make it on to local authority housing lists and can wait years to be rehoused, at least their parents can pass on their homes to them.
Tenants who exercise their Right To Buy their council homes actually are investing in their homes and are maintaining them themselves and are usually the better tenants who take an active interest in the housing estates that they are buying in to and help to raise standards and keep their landlords on their toes. Very many younger generation tenants choose to opt out of society and adopt a cant care less attitude to their homes and surrounding estates. It is those who opt to buy their homes that helps put a brake on social housing estates sliding down the greasy pole in to becoming sink estates.
So please lets stop bashing tenants for buying their local authority homes they are not depriving anyone of a home, it is a shortage of new homes being built that is depriving the millions on council housing waiting lists waiting years for a social housing home.
Stephen West
Orbit Bexley Housing Association Independent Leaseholders Group
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B.S. Townroe | 20/10/2009 4:28 pm
The 'Right to Buy' is at the heart of so many wrongs with our housing market that it's depressing to read this report. RTB has dug a huge hole in the supply of affordable housing that it seems hard to credit that the Tory response is to keep digging and, in 'an ideal world', to use a bigger shovel whilst doing so.
All this'll achieve is a combination of the further residualisation of social housing and the encouragement of more who should never buy their home (buying into the owner-occupier equals better life myth at the same time) into the wonderful world of repossession and homelessness. But, I'm forgetting the Tories did so much for those who lost their home under their watch. Silly me.
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A Rural Housing Enabler | 20/10/2009 4:37 pm
So Grant Shapps thinks that the Right to Buy was 'one of the most revolutionary social policies'. Why doesn't he extend the right to buy to the tenants of private landlords? That would really be revolutionary!
Stephen West is quite right in saying that tenants who exercise the Right to Buy are not depriving anyone of a home. However, the whole process does mean that the housing stock available for social rented housing is reduced. Also, there are many ex-council houses which are now owned by private landlords and let out at high rents.
If the Tories win the next general election, and extend the Right to Buy, I wonder if the will they be revolutionary enough to modify it so that houses sold will have to be 'affordable' and owned by owner occupiers in perpetuity?
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Joe Halewood | 20/10/2009 5:10 pm
Stephen - I am not missing the point rather the reverse is true.
One property sold from social housng stock is one property less. The RTB has been responsible for removing over 1m properties from the social housing stock. Have 1m new build social properties been developed since the early 1980s? - Nowhere near that amount - unless you care to correct that with statistics.
RTB is a direct cause of the massive and costly undersupply of social housing we now have as a country. It is also a direct cause of increased public spending on HB as the alternative to it - private landlords - have had to be used more and more to meet that shortfall. [Im just concentrating on lack of supply and not lack of security and community stability.]
RTB is the singlemost gravest error made in social housing policy
Stephen - i find your comments deliberately ageist and provocative over young people and a common myth if you look at the age distribution of asbos - more older persons than younger ones - so who precisely has a dont give a damn attitude. Please give some substantiated evidence for your offensive and off-the-cuff mythology.
Yes RTB sales are depriving others of a home. If - as is deeply held in Tory philosophy - social housing is just a stepping stone to home ownership - then those that can afford RTB can afford a privte home and not take yet another social home out of the social housing capacity. Yet they choose to take a heavily subsidised option at the expense of others more vulnerable - is that your idea of community spirit? Others call that greedy profiteering and in my view correctly.
Michael Read - So selling off a 200k asset for 160k will buy what - a 200k replacement or a 160k replacement, surely its the latter. So even if each RTB sale is replaced with a new build then the replacements will be 20% inferior. In fact this is likely to be even higher. Council properties are not sought after on the open market (compared to private homes) and dont realise the same monetary value.
Whereas a new build are priced at a premium even to develop and so the discounted funding from RTB sales will buy even less in terms of size and standard - in simplistic overview it is highly probable that the proceeds of a 3-bed RTB sale will only afford a 1 or 2-bed replacement - so capacity in terms of the numbers accommodated i would suggest will decrease 33% if replaced one for one.
A far more purposeful mechanism is to allow councils the level-playing field right to borrow and so develop more social housing. RTB will only replace one for one at best and even that wont happen. Yet the problem all recognise is the chronic undersupply - sorry Michael is 'chronic' overstating th millions on waiting lists - or is that my hyperbole?
Councils and RSLs need to be looking to increase their overall stock levels to meet demand not reducing it through RTB. That is sheer bloody madness that deprives the public purse of national assets and increases the public purse commitments in HB. RTB is a folly that only has political dogma to support it and even thats superficial. Youve rented so long you deserve the right to buy at a discount - nice principle that its adherents reject out of hand if it applied to private renting - same principle but alienates Tory voters.
Finally, if RTB was a Labour / Liberal or Monster Raving Loony party policy i'd still say it was a massive folly. This is not political objection but logical argument against this arbitrary folly and direct cause of the social housing crisis of undersupply we have today.
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Bill Glynn | 20/10/2009 9:26 pm
In response to Joe Halewood
Actually it costs significantly less than £160k to build a house with a value of £200k. It would be even cheaper if councils used brown filed sites they alerady own as the biggest cost in building is the land! The average cost to build a house with a value of £200k is £145k INCLUDING land and about £100-120 k without it!
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iulun | 20/10/2009 9:51 pm
RTB has had its benefits during the Thatcher's administration however, we are all faced with the recession and impact its had on our economy. the issue of housing has become an embarrasing factor which is obvious, what the government should be thinking of doing is encourage all the hard to let properties to be brought up to decent home standard so that the waiting list can be reduced and homeless people will be accommoded. this is just a simple thing to do. affordability, supply and choice is also a big problem! wake up you dont need experts to provide reviews before something is done?
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