You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Right to Buy extension announcement expected this week
This week Boris Johnson is expected to make a formal announcement about extending the Right to Buy to housing association tenants.
According to a report by The Times, the prime minister will say that he wants the roughly 2.5 million tenants renting from housing associations to have the opportunity to buy their homes at a discount.
He is expected to draw on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, whose government introduced the key Conservative policy through the Housing Act in 1980.
It comes after the government hinted that the Right to Buy could be extended to housing associations in early May, just before the local election took place.
The upcoming announcement also comes amid increasing pressure on Mr Johnson after the Partygate scandal.
He faces a vote of no confidence at 6pm this evening after the threshold (15%) of Conservative MPs calling for him to go was reached.
READ MORE
So far, 54 of them have submitted letters of no confidence. More than half of Conservative MPs – at least 180 – must vote against the prime minister to oust him.
This is not the first time an extension of the Right to Buy policy, which currently only applies to council homes, has been considered by ministers.
David Cameron announced ahead of the 2015 general election that he would extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants in the first 100 days of his term, but he never fulfilled this pledge.
In 2018, Theresa May’s government launched a pilot in the West Midlands to test the policy. A total of 1,892 homes were sold under the pilot, which is less than the 3,000 homes the government estimated would be sold.
In its 2019 general election manifesto, the Conservative Party promised to “evaluate new pilot areas in order to spread the dream of homeownership to even more people”.
After the news of a potential extension emerged again last month, experts raised concerns to Inside Housing about the workability of the policy, including cost, legality and the loss of social housing.
Since the policy was first launched, a total of 1.9 million homes have been sold to tenants through the Right to Buy scheme.
Research by the Chartered Institute of Housing last year found that 40% of the homes sold are now rented out privately.
Also in the announcement this week, Mr Johnson is expected to encourage building more modular homes to tackle the housing crisis.
