Right to buy put homes in the hands of landlords. Rehashing it will do the same
Among the slew of “red meat” policies that are now being put forward to shore up Boris Johnson’s position, there is one that ought to cause real concern for those want to see fair and balanced housing in this country. The government is proposing to resurrect right to buy for tenants in housing association properties, allowing tenants to potentiallyuse their housing benefit in order to buy their social properties at discounts of up to 70% of market price.
This rehashing of one of Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policies originally formed part of the hugely contested and controversial Housing and Planning Act, introduced by the Conservatives in their 2015 general election manifesto. It was sidelined in 2016 by Theresa May and her chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, in favour of a more balanced approach that valued different types of housing: home ownership, private rental and “affordable” housing.
The paucity of detail in the current announcement suggests it is still at the drawing-board stage. It should stay there. There are a number of problems with the policy.
Most obviously, these are not the government’s properties to sell. Housing associations are independent, mainly charitable organisations that were established with the main purpose of providing genuinely affordable homes for those on low incomes. Peabody, which I chair, was founded in 1862 by George Peabody, who sought to “ameliorate the conditions of the poor and needy” in London. It should not be for the government to oblige Peabody to sell its housing stock. And if it does, the cost of the substantial discounts must be fully reimbursed.
It is hard to think of a more inequitable and poor-value policy for a government committed to “levelling up”. Under the current
Read more on theguardian.com
