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Questions raised over how Raab would fund Right to Buy plan
Questions have been raised about how prospective Conservative leader Dominic Raab would fund a policy to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants, after he suggested he would reinvigorate the policy if he were to be elected.
According to reports on Friday, Mr Raab said one of his first acts if he became prime minister would be to fulfil the pledge made in 2015 to allow around one million tenants to buy their homes.
Former prime minister David Cameron vowed to widen the scheme initially available only to council house tenants four years ago – but the government only ever carried out a voluntary pilot scheme in the Midlands. Mr Raab said that as a result housing association tenants were missing out.
However, concerns have been raised about how the policy would be funded. In 2015 the government suggested it would be paid for by forcing councils to sell off expensive homes to raise around £4.5bn a year.
The money would then be used to compensate housing associations in the local area for the loss of their stock and allow more homes to be built.
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Lord Gary Porter, chair the Local Government Association and leader of South Holland District Council, responded to Mr Raab’s announcement on Twitter.
“Extending RTB [Right to Buy] to RSL [registered social landlord] tenants is a good idea. How will you compensate the RSLs? Put up tax? Scrap ‘Help to Buy’? I’m sure you’re not so stupid as to think selling council houses will be the way to do it,” he wrote.
In response to a suggestion that the policy was not a good idea, he continued: “Not if it’s fully funded, sell two million, build two million more, end of the housing crisis.”
Tony Stacey, chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association (SYHA), said the only way to pay for the policy would be via some form of taxation.
“Whether you tax people’s incomes or tax councils, it will need to be paid for,” he said.
He said he did not think that demand from housing association tenants was particularly high, and that he did not know of any SYHA tenants who had tried to buy their home but had been frustrated.
“Four years on [from the initial policy], existing social housing stock has been depleted with council house sales and the conversion of social rented properties, so there is even more pressure on stock,” he added.
Mr Raab’s campaign office did not respond to Inside Housing’s requests to comment on the updated plans, and whether the funding mechanism had changed.
The plan by Mr Raab was also met with raised eyebrows from sector leaders on social media.
Lee Sugden, chief executive of Salix Homes, said on Twitter that the plan was “shocking” adding that Right to Buy favoured the few and limited affordable options for the many.
The social housing green paper, which was published last August, essentially dropped plans for the so-called ‘higher-value asset levy’ which would have forced councils to sell some homes.
But Philip Glanville, mayor of Hackney, said: "This announcement from Dominic Raab makes us very nervous. We would be very disturbed to see unfunded expansion of Right to Buy, or funding with the sale of assets."
He criticised Mr Raab’s suggestion, and said: "It’s not housing policy based on what’s needed."
