The government is considering scrapping right to buy, in a bid to boost the nation’s affordable housing stock.
Deputy prime minister John Prescott has drawn up proposals to suspend the rights of tens of thousands of council tenants to buy their council houses at a discount.
It is understood that the sale of local authority homes to tenants in areas with low housing supplies, such as London, Leeds and York, could end as soon as this autumn.
Prescott has argued that council house sales are undermining his ambitious targets for new affordable housing.
A report into affordable housing conducted by a House of Commons committee showed that while each sale nets £40,000 for the public purse, the average amount of public subsidy needed to replace the stock is £65,000.
In 2000-01, 53,000 English council properties were sold while 18,000 homes were built for affordable renting, mostly by non-profit housing associations.
Former Tory party chairman David Davies, who was last week given the task of shadowing John Prescott, said: “Abolishing the right to buy will do nothing to free up existing housing stock.
“Indeed, it will only make the problem worse as people will become stuck in social housing, unable to get their first step on the housing ladder.”
Conservative MP Chris Grayling, who sits on the Commons’ transport, local government and the regions committee, also criticised proposals to scrap right to buy. He said: “If a family buys a house, that’s one more family on the housing ladder. If you do take an affordable home out of the supply, you take a family that requires it out as well.
“They cancel each other out. Any proposal to scrap the programme just to boost the overall amount of affordable housing is a nonsense.
The right-to-buy policy, which was introduced by the Conservative government in 1981, has been dubbed as “open to abuse” by housing minister Lord Rooker, and has been opposed by former housing minister Nick Raynsford.
EGi News 30/07/02
