In a speech in Lancashire, the PM is expected to say he wants to extend the right to buy to people who rent from housing associations.
He will also suggest allowing housing benefit to count towards a mortgage.
The right-to-buy policy has been blamed for exhausting supplies of social housing that have not been replaced, but has long held a totemic status within parts of the Tory party.
In England in 2020-21, around four million households - 17% of the total - lived in rented social housing. Of those, 2.4 million - 10% of the total - rented from housing associations, while 1.6 million - 7% of the total - rented from local authorities.
The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, has said any extension to the right to buy should include a guarantee that any homes sold would be replaced.
In a recent statement, the federation said replacing housing association stock is difficult to achieve in practice because the money generated through sales is not enough to build new social homes.
I’m totally against any right-to-buy policy for social housing.
I didn’t expect anything less from you However, private rented accommodation is dire, poorly maintained, and very very expensive! You pay more in rent than you do a mortgage.
If there were no social housing, there would be far more homelessness than there is already, and that would cause so many other problems. Not everyone (working) can afford a mortgage.
Do you have a problem with people who can’t afford to buy their own home, Todger? Many professional families have struggled to raise the deposit for a mortgage and get on the housing ladder in the first place. Social housing is more affordable.
I have no “problem” with people who can’t afford to buy their own pad, where I do have a problem is with the whole concept of tax payers paying for houses for others - full stop.
Maybe I’m having a “thick” moment, but we are all tax payers, who pay into the same system , aren’t we? So that money gets distributed into various sectors, of which we all benefit from (healthcare, education, housing etc). Your stance makes it sound (to me anyway), that all the tax you have personally paid, goes immediately to all the people who don’t have a mortgage. Why should a regular tax payer, not have access to social housing?
Well said Pixie
I have paid tax all of my adult life & it has been used to educate children, even though I have none myself, but without education many of those children would have not been able to get a job…so the tax we pay to help poorer people is always a good thing. If we dont help people, how can they ever learn how to help themselves & not become homeless?
The private sector buy houses and rent them out, purely to make a profit, so very little maintenance is done and the homes they rent out for a fortune become slums!
Boris is trying to buy votes with this idea, but I believe that social housing should not be sold because there will always be people that cannot afford to buy…
Nobody wants to rent a house, all would like to own one, but the answer isn’t to sell social housing. I would hope that government would encourage people to invest in their children’s future by contributing to a scheme that will increase in value over the years ( just like pension contributions do ) to help them buy a small house in the future.
I think it was Mrs Thatcher who came up with the idea of letting them buy council houses but she hadn’t realised that, if you sell council houses people who can’t afford to buy would have nowhere to live.
As long as we have people that always want more from life, there will never be enough money for all to have a comfortable life… because prices will keep on rising .
If Putin manages to start WW3 & decreases the populations of Europe, I am sure money will be sufficient to produce enough houses for all & the whole process of what happened after WW2 will start again.
If not I can’t see any answer to the current housing problem !
On the one hand social housing sounds great in principle … why not help out families who are struggling. Subsidised housing sounds fine.
Except … if there is not enough supply to meet demand, which there no longer is since the sell-off of council housing stock began … you’re left with waiting lists and queues whilst some people living in them are quite frankly too well off to be in them and should be kicked out.
The solution would seem to be to get rid of the remainder of any housing left … much as it would gall me to sell off rocket bottom price properties to undeserving people, though of course not all are undeserving scroungers.
Yes, this will mean that private landlords will benefit but I’m afraid the current system is rubbish.
For once i’m inclined to agree with you …with one proviso … there has to be a rent cap or private landlords will be laughing all the way to the bank. I take it there is already a cap?
Yes. The rent act was quite good in this respect but when the Blair government introduced the 1988 housing act a very great deal that the 77 act provided was lost.
However, private rented accommodation is dire, poorly maintained, and very very expensive! You pay more in rent than you do a mortgage.
