Right-to-buy scheme 'will not deplete social housing stock'

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/26/right-to-buy-social-housing-asscoiation-property

Version 0 of 1.

The new communities secretary, Greg Clark, has insisted government plans to provide a right to buy for 1.3 million housing association tenants will not lead to a fall in overall provision of social housing in England.

The measure is due to be included in the Queen’s speech on Wednesday and Clark defended the policy saying “consistently, over many years, nearly 86% want to own their home and just because you have signed a social tenancy should not mean you sign away your aspiration to own your own home”.

Ministers have insisted that social housing will not fall because councils will be expected to replace any housing association property that is sold. The new properties are due to be provided by the enforced sale of more expensive council-owned property when the tenancy falls vacant. Housing association tenants who have lived in a property for three years will be entitled to seek a discount on the purchase of the property of up to 70%.

Clark said there would not be a net fall in affordable property. “Where the flat is sold to the existing tenant it is not lost, it does not evaporate, and it is sold to someone that has means to pay for it, so then what is released in terms of the sale can then build an extra home – so it is adding to the housing stock. Every housing association property that is sold will be replaced one for one for a new property, so it is not only allowing people to meet their housing aspiration, but to increase the housing stock as well.”

He said it was not an increase in government subsidy since housing association tenants already paid a state subsidised rent, and the sale of the property to them at a discounted rate merely crystallises the subsidy.

A previous increase in the discount on council house sales in 2012 had produced an extra 40,000 sales, he said, but so far only one in 19 council properties sold had been replaced by another affordable property. Clark said the objective had not been to replace each property in the 2012 scheme, adding councils had three years to replace the sold property.