CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE 2016: Housing minister Gavin Barwell has said he will end the focus on promoting home ownership through the government’s affordable housing budget.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference, he said: “At the moment, the budget that I inherited is very heavily focused on shared ownership, with a bit of money for rent to buy and supported housing, but no new funding for affordable rent.
“And I am actually having a much more flexible approach, where we say to people bidding for those funds, what is the maximum number of homes and mixed tenure?”
He added: “I reject these false choices we have had in the past where it is homes to buy or homes to rent. I need more homes for sale, I need more shared ownership, I need more homes for private rent and I need more sub-market rent. And I want all of it, as much as possible of all of it.”
Barwell told the Commons in July that decisions on affordable housing will be made by the chancellor in his Budget, but conceded then that here was a case for investment in both homes for sale and homes for rent.
Speaking at the fringe event, he said: “I absolutely accept that there are some people – about 85% of people want to own their own home – there are some people who don’t, or who realistically are not going to be able to, and it is absolutely important that we have provision for them.”
He said a “rent to buy” product, providing people with affordable housing below market rent to allow them to save for a deposit, was a “really positive” idea.
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