Right to buy 2.0

Article

Conservative MP David Davis and Labour MP Frank Field join forces in a bid to unlock the capital trapped in social houses where the tenant is not allowed to buy their home and to channel the revenue generated into improving and expanding Britain's sorely lacking social housing stock.

In 1980, Margaret Thatcher's government gave council tenants the right to buy their homes. This policy transformed the lives of some of the least affluent in society, helping two million Britons become homeowners for the first time. However, the current rules mean many housing association tenants who are willing and able to buy their home are not allowed to do so. A million housing association tenants do not have the right to buy, while the last government's restriction of right to buy discounts also made it more difficult for council tenants to buy their home this way.

Preventing social tenants from owning their home ties up billions of pounds of public funds that could be better used to help people onto the housing ladder. Reinvigorating and extending the right to buy would not only incr ease home ownership: by using all the funds raised to build new homes, the policy would lift the most vulnerable households in Britain off waiting lists, out of temporary accommodation and into a place they can call home.

Related items

  1. A view of Glasgow, Scotland, from above.

    More than a safety net: The welfare state as springboard to economic success and a better country

    A perceived conflict between social spending and economic dynamism is deeply embedded in both Scottish and UK political discourse.
  2. The Home Office building in London

    Far from settled: The government’s ‘earned settlement’ consultation

    How long should people have to wait until they can permanently settle in the UK? This is the core question underpinning the Home Office’s ‘earned settlement’ policy, currently out for consultation.

  3. Rethinking public sector productivity

    This is the second in a series of IPPR Scotland blogs as part of our project on Employment, Productivity and Reform in the Scottish Public Sector. This project is funded by the Robertson Trust.