New Clause
8
Right
to buy for tenants of registered providers of social
housing
‘(1) A tenant of a
registered provider of social housing has the right to buy the dwelling
of which he is a tenant
if—
(a) he is a tenant
under an assured tenancy, other than an assured shorthold tenancy or a
long tenancy, and
(b) he
satisfies any further qualifying conditions applicable under Part V of
the Housing Act 1985.
(2) The
Secretary of State shall, within six months of the commencement of this
Act, introduce regulations in respect of the right to buy for
registered providers of social
housing.
(3) Regulations
introduced under subsection (2) shall include provision to ensure that
the proceeds of disposal are allocated to the provision of further
social housing.
(4) Before
making such regulations the Secretary of State shall consult with such
bodies as appear to the Secretary of State to be representative of
registered providers of social housing.’.—[Grant
Shapps.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Grant
Shapps:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss new
clause 22— Right to buy: power for local authorities to vary
discount levels
‘(1) For
section 129 of the Housing Act 1985 there shall be
substituted:
“129
Discount
(1) Subject to the
following provisions of this Part, a landlord authority may determine
that a person exercising the right to buy shall be entitled to a
discount in the purchase price of such amount as the authority may
prescribe.
(2) For the purposes
of subsection (1), a landlord authority shall by resolution prescribe
the amounts of any such
discount.
(3) Any discount so
prescribed by the authority shall be calculated or set by reference to
the period which is to be taken into account in accordance with
Schedule 4 (qualifying period for right to buy and
discount).
(4) A resolution in
accordance with subsection (2) may make different provision with
respect to different cases or descriptions of
properties.
(5) The Secretary
of State may by order provide that, in such cases as may be specified
in the order, the maximum discount which may be permitted by a landlord
authority under subsection
(2).
(6) An order under
subsection (4) may make different provision with respect to different
authorities or regions, or with respect to different cases or
descriptions of properties.
(7)
If a landlord authority decides not to exercise its power under
subsection (1), nothing in this section shall require it to do
so.’.
Grant
Shapps:
The new clauses are intended to ensure that right
to buy is not compromised by the legislation. A tenant of a registered
provider of social housing should have the right to buy the dwelling in
which he is living.
I
am sorry, I need a moment
to—
Sir
George Young (North-West Hampshire) (Con): As I understand
it, the new clause would extend the right to buy to tenants of
registered providers of social housing. As my hon. Friend knows, at the
moment local authority tenants have the right to buy with all the
associated discounts, and there is a preserved right to buy when the
housing stock is transferred under large-scale voluntary transfer, but
new tenants do not at the moment have that entitlement.
I believe what my hon. Friend
was seeking to do when he tabled new clause 8 was to develop the
argument that within the social housing sector there is an element of
inequality, in that some have the right to buy and others do not. I was
looking forward to hearing him develop the argument that the existing
right should be extended to tenants of social
housing.
Grant
Shapps:
When I say I am most grateful to my right hon.
Friend for intervening, I cannot exaggerate the extent. I think he is
entirely right, now that I have found my notes on new clauses 8 and
22.
The right to buy
has been one of the most significant elements in the last 50 years in
extending social mobility to vast sections of the population. It is a
policy that, while controversial, has delivered in a way that almost
nothing else, no other sort of social engineering, has been able to do,
in mixing communities as it has.
One thing
that unites Government and Opposition Members on housing—other
than the fact that we all want to end the housing crisis by building
more homes—is the idea that communities would perform better,
that society would work better, if communities were mixed. Rather than
having single-tenure or single types of community there could be a
cross-section of society living within the same or similar space. The
right to buy has perhaps more than anything else enabled that, creating
a situation that is now widespread throughout the country, though, as
we are about to discuss, not quite as widespread as it should
be.
Mr.
Andy Slaughter (Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush) (Lab):
If we are all indeed in favour of building more homes—and I
think the hon. Gentleman should look round at his colleagues on the
Back Benches next time he is in the Chamber to see if they are all
nodding in approval—how can that be achieved by disposing of
existing social housing without seeing like-for-like
replacement?
Grant
Shapps:
That is an interesting intervention, because it
leads on to the next point. The right to buy was tremendously
successful in mixing communities but—and I think this is the
point the hon. Gentleman is driving at—it did not do enough at
the time to create sufficient new social housing, though the record was
better than it has been recently. The reasons included a
concern that local authorities would not spend the money in the best
possible way, so the money was best ring-fenced and left
alone.
When this
Government came to power they chose not to allow the money from right
to buy to be spent on developing new properties. Instead they allowed
the money to be used to improve the standards of existing homes. That
is welcome, but the problem with that policy is that standards have
only improved by about 15 per cent. We have some research coming out
soon that will back this point. It has not improved standards as much
as it might have done but, worse
still—
Mr.
Wright:
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s
argument extremely closely. On the subjects of money and research, will
he inform the Committee whether his party has carried out any costings
on the financial effects of the new
clause?
Grant
Shapps:
One of the interesting things about getting this
right is that allowing people to purchase the properties in which they
live and then taking that money to build more housing creates a
virtuous circle. The problem that one could characterise easily with
the original right to buy was that the money was ring-fenced, for good
reasons, because of concerns over the councils at the time. When the
Government came in, the money was spent, but it was spent on
refurbishment and better home standards. The new clause proposes that
money can be spent in ways that would include improving and enlarging
the housing stock. As we discussed earlier in the day, that has not
happened sufficiently in the past few
years.
5
pm
Mr.
Love:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that with the
significant discounts available under the right to buy using money
raised through that process will never replace, on a one-to-one basis,
the accommodation that is lost? How does he intend to replace those
properties lost under the right to buy through this new
clause?
Grant
Shapps:
The hon. Gentleman should understand that the
homes are still there. When a home is sold at or discounted
from market rate, quite often, the money is available to not just
replace on a one-to-one basis but on a two-to-one basis. I have been
looking at a case recently where a housing association has been able to
sell one of its properties and with the proceeds they built six
residential properties in a housing association setting, thereby,
expanding the supply of affordable housing. It is a virtuous circle. It
will not always be six, but it was with this particular property. It is
a virtuous circle if it means that by moving people into different
types of tenancy, by moving them up and along the property ladder
and by creating more housing we can help to resolve the
housing crisis. It is the Government’s failure to recognise
those basic facts that has led to less social housing being built for
the past 10 years than for the previous 18.
Alistair
Burt:
Is it not the case, as he is finding out in
Committee and as we have seen in the House, that the hostility to the
right to buy from many Members
opposite is of serious concern to the Front Bench? Given a free vote on
the other side, I wonder how many Members opposite would vote to
extinguish the right to buy altogether? That is what they really want
to
do.
Grant
Shapps:
We can perhaps put it to the test. My hon. Friend
has a strong point, which is that there is almost a psychological
dislike of the approach. If that is not the case, I will give way the
hon. Lady, who was trying to intervene first, to tell us
why.
Margaret
Moran:
I have just brought to my hon. Friend’s
attention that it was this Government who introduced the right to
acquire; an issue that he appears to have missed in his debate so far.
He also appears to be confusing disposal by RSLs to create more housing
with disposal to individuals. Given that the right to buy resulted in
the loss of about one third of council housing stock, is on the other
side of the coin and arguing that there needs to be an increase of
about a third or more—from his arguments—of new
building?
Grant
Shapps:
I respect the hon. Lady’s input as a
previous chief executive of a housing association, but I am slightly
mystified by the maths. Those houses have not disappeared. They are
still there. They have people living in them. The point of expanding
our housing stock is to keep the existing houses and to create more.
Andrew
George:
I am as intrigued as many other Members are. The
hon. Gentleman refers to a “virtuous circle”, I wonder
whether he should rephrase it as a “magic circle” in
which rabbits are pulled out of hats and properties, which are sold at
below market value, are replaced by properties that have to be built
within the market. Can he illustrate his example, with calculations, of
being able to sell properties at a discount and to replace them while
meeting all the building and land
costs?
Grant
Shapps:
One thing that I thought we were all agreed on is
that it is desirable to prevent housing stock from seizing up, in other
words, to enable people to move on and up. Right to buy is one
brilliant way of achieving that
goal.
The problem with
housing is that, while it costs money to build a house, the real cost
is of the land itself, which is one of the reasons why umpteen people
have come forward to back the idea of a £60,000 home as launched
by the former Deputy Prime Minister, but of course finding the land to
put that home on is an entirely different matter. That is why community
land trusts, for example, should play such a vital role. I am pleased
with what is in the Bill about those trusts, but we can go much
further. We should make it the norm rather than the exception, so that
the cost of the land is stripped out of the equation as soon as it is
used for housing, and the property-only part of it is transferred from
one tenant to another, or even sold by one person to
another.
Mr.
Raynsford:
Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Grant
Shapps:
I just want to ensure that I answer this point in
full.
I cannot provide
here and now the sums and maths behind the example that I was citing,
but I will provide the Committee and the Minister, if they are
interested, with the Circle Anglia example, where one property was sold
and six were built. If he still then thinks that there is an argument
against my proposal, I will be interested to hear
it.
Mr.
Raynsford:
The hon. Gentleman has praised community land
trusts. Does he recognise that the right to buy does not apply to them,
precisely because it would otherwise deplete the benefit to the
community?
Grant
Shapps:
The right hon. Gentleman will know that, as a
result of this legislation and the Committee’s refusal to accept
a new clause that we tabled, there is no legal definition of a
community land trust, so he has no basis on which to say that they do
not do certain things. Some of the trusts—I can show him
examples—are considering doing some incredibly innovative
things, including allowing shares in the properties to be sold, which
in effect—[ Hon. Members:
“Shares.”] Well, we can have a debate about whether 100
per cent. of the shares means ownership, and I readily concede that it
does not include the land itself, which is the key, and answers the
intervention from the hon. Member for St. Ives, but it none the less
ensures mixed tenure, which is the crucial
point.
Going back to
the last intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East
Bedfordshire, the scale of the dislike on the Government Benches for
anything that mentions the words “right to buy” is
evident. I can only conclude that that is why there are so many hands
in the air right
now.
Mr.
Slaughter:
This is voodoo economics, and the sacrifices
tend to be people in housing need. The antipathy on this side is not to
the right to buy but to reducing the stock of social housing. The new
clause exposes not our problem with the right to buy but the
Conservatives’ problem with social housing. It is just another
cheap trick to reduce the stock, which is exactly what happened in the
Thatcher years, and exactly what my Conservative council is doing
now.
Grant
Shapps:
I could not disagree more. What really betrays
those in the greatest housing need is housing waiting lists, which are
so much longer than they were 10 years ago, and the failure to build as
much social housing as was built when my right hon. Friend the Member
for North-West Hampshire was in the Minister's role and during the 18 years before
this Government. That is what betrays people on the lowest rung of the
ladder who are struggling, without a house, to get housed—the
homeless people with whom I have been working in recent months. The
idea that building more homes betrays people is simply poppycock, and
it is unbelievable to hear it being pressed in this
Committee.
The new
clauses are designed to ensure that the right to buy is extended in a
way that enables more housing, including affordable housing, to be
built. I would have thought that that would be roundly welcomed by the
Committee.
Mr.
Love:
I remind the hon. Gentleman that when the issue last
came before Parliament—he may not remember it, but I am sure
that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire will—it was
defeated by his own party in the House of Lords. Perhaps he could
discuss things further with his colleagues in another place before
deciding to press the amendment to a
vote.
Grant
Shapps:
We are going round in circles, on a debate that
started at some point in the ’80s and is continuing today. I
simply asked the Minister to look at the facts. As I have said many
times—during the debate on new clause 8 and previously in
Committee—the failure to build social housing is the reason why
the people who need social housing do not have it. They can spin this
any way that they like, but if they do not build more social houses and
do not use the receipts from right to buy to help that happen, they
will be forever stuck in the quagmire of failing to build sufficient
social housing but wringing their hands and talking about their desire
to do so. New clause 8 provides a practical application, a real way to
make it happen. I would have thought that that was something the whole
Committee ought to be
welcoming.
Andrew
George:
New clause 22 has been tabled by my hon. Friend
the Member for Montgomeryshire and me. It would allow individual local
authorities to take decisions about the level of discounts that they
would wish to offer under right to buy. Setting the level could be
operated so as to discourage or restrict purchases, but could also help
where the prices are low, and the desire for the available housing was
low—setting the level could be used to contribute to the
regeneration of that community. That is something that could be decided
by the local authority at
hand.
Before going
into a little more detail, although I will not detain the Committee for
an undue length of time in view of the progress we have failed to make
so far, I will comment on the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield’s
contribution to the previous debate. Since 1980 more than 1.7 million
properties have been sold under right to buy, yet fewer than half of
these have been replaced through social house building. Not even all
those will have been funded by the receipts of those property
sales—during the Conservative tenure of 18 years, the ability of
local authorities to use such receipts was somewhat restricted as well.
We also have to consider whether the Conservative legacy was
acceptable.
Certainly
the calculations of the income generated from the receipt of sales
under right to buy have never been sufficient. I am not aware of any
local authorities that are champing-at-the-bit keen to sell their
properties because, as a result of selling one property, they are able
to accrue to themselves or to registered social landlords more than one
property—nay, six in one case. The magic circle—rather
than a virtuous circle—painted by the hon. Gentleman has to be
taken with a severe pinch of
salt.
The purpose of
new clause 22, as I said, is to allow individual local authorities to
take decisions about the level of discount available. They would have
the freedom to revise the level of discount available on a regular
basis, to take into account the changes in the conditions of housing
needs and the levels of demand
for right to buy in their areas. That freedom would allow them to
discharge more effectively the strategic place-shaped function
envisaged in the local government White Paper of 2006 and in the Lyons
report. A number of recent changes to the policy and legislative
landscape have aimed to strengthen the role of local authorities in
strategic planning. The local authorities are intended as
place-shapers. Sir Michael Lyons stressed in his final report the
importance of allowing local communities flexibility and choice, so
that they can respond to local conditions. One of the report’s
main conclusions was that greater flexibility was required, “both over finances and to enable
local government to manage local services in response to local
needs.”
The local
government White Paper in 2006 and its subsequent updates also stated
that local flexibility and “devolving more power locally”
are key Government priorities for reforming local government.
I would request that the
Minister looks again at the affordability index that was used to decide
which local authority areas should have restricted discounts applied to
those areas. Certainly, we need an update of that index and a provision
to allow local authorities to apply the index appropriately, and to
guide them in their decisions when apportioning the level of discount
that they intend to
apply.
5.15
pm
Sir
George Young:
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s
argument closely. I wonder whether the new clause might have a perverse
consequence. If a local authority could reduce the discount or
eliminate it, the first thing that local authority tenants would
do—if they could—if they felt that their local authority
was about to use that power, would be to buy their home under the
existing regime. Perversely, the new clause could accelerate the loss
of social
housing.
Andrew
George:
The manner and speed at which decisions are taken,
the implementation and management of those decisions and the
forecasting of the decisions that are likely to be taken by a local
authority are matters that need to be considered when rolling out such
a proposal. In the same way, the Government no doubt took those issues
into account when they allocated the 41 local authorities for which
there would be a restricted discount of a maximum of £16,000 on
each property. Those matters would then exercise the local authorities
in the manner in which they applied the discounts. I do not seek to
diminish the fact that, just as businesses in the City making decisions
over investment try to predict the decisions of the Bank of England
over the setting of interest rates, the same would apply to local
authorities, so the right hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. I
would hope that the implementation of this reasonable measure would
allow devolved decision-making to reflect the circumstances within each
of the local authority areas. That is something that can be overcome
and taken into account during
implementation.
The
Housing Act 2004 introduced some welcome reforms to the right to buy,
extending the qualifying and discount repayment period, during which a
proportion of the discount must be repaid if the property is sold on.
Those reforms have helped to limit the exploitation of the right to buy
by property companies and others. Similarly, the restrictions on the
right to buy under the original Act, which was amended later in the
1980s, limited the right to buy in certain circumstances, in 26 rural
areas. That provides an example that differential geographical
decisions can be made in local circumstances. For the measures that I
have described—the 41 local authority areas where discounts are
varied and the rural restrictions on right to buy re-sales—those
decisions are taken by the Secretary of State. With the new clause,
however, we are asking the Government to allow local authorities to
have that discretion themselves and I hope that the Minister has taken
that point on board. Given his welcome for the idea that decisions
should be taken at a more local level in other aspects of the Bill, and
that the Secretary of State should not be so overbearing, I hope that
he will take that on board when conveying these powers to local
authorities.
Mr.
Wright:
I have thoroughly enjoyed the debate as I think
have other hon. Members.
May I say at
the start that the Government—and me personally—support
the right to buy? It has helped thousands of families, including my
own, to realise the aspiration of owning their homes and has helped to
create stable, mixed-tenure communities. I want to mention an important
point about the right-to-buy discounts. I get letters about this issue
on both sides of the argument. Some people think that right-to-buy
discounts are already too high and should be reduced whereas others
argue that maximum discounts should be raised to reflect rising
property prices. We believe that the present limits strike a reasonable
balance between helping people into home ownership and helping those
who need social housing. We therefore have no plans to change the
current right-to-buy
discounts.
The
Government want to widen access to home ownership as much as possible
and help more people, including social tenants, to build up assets.
With the greatest of respect to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, I
do not think that the proposals before us are the most sensible way of
achieving
that.
Seventy per
cent. of tenants of registered social landlords already have a right to
purchase their home under the right-to-buy and right-to-acquire
schemes. The Government introduced the pilot social homebuy scheme to
help tenants of RSLs who do not have a right to buy or right to
acquire, or who cannot afford it, to buy a share in their rented home.
Under social homebuy, tenants may buy from 25 per cent. to 100 per
cent. of their home at a discount and landlords can keep the sales
proceeds for reinvestment in social and affordable
housing.
Grant
Shapps:
I wonder if the Minister can tell us how many
homes have been sold under the much-trumpeted social homebuy
scheme?
Mr.
Wright:
I do not have that information to hand, but I can
tell the hon. Gentleman that my right hon.
Friend the Minister for Housing announced on 12 December that
social homebuy will continue and that we are encouraging landlords to
improve affordability and develop an option under which maintenance
costs are shared. Our approach is to work with landlords to develop a
scheme that is more affordable for tenants and more viable for
landlords.
I
intervened on the hon. Gentleman to ask about costing. That is the main
theme of my opposition to the new clause. Compelling registered
providers of social housing to sell their stock at a discount would be
very costly. It would require full consultation. Registered providers
faced with large-scale sales might find it more and more difficult to
borrow to fund new provision and their repair and maintenance
programmes. If the taxpayer, through the Exchequer, was to fund the
discount, as is the case for the right-to-acquire scheme for tenants of
registered social landlords, we estimate that extending the right to
buy to those tenants who currently do not have such a right would cost
£268 million a year. I suggest to the Committee that that would
have a significant impact on the resources available to provide
investment in new social
housing.
Mr.
Raynsford:
My hon. Friend is making a very persuasive
case. He said at the outset that he has enjoyed the debate. I enjoyed
the debate, but was puzzled by the absence of contributions from the
right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire and the hon. Member for
North-East Bedfordshire. Had they given a speech, rather than the
helpful and kindly intervention that the right hon. Gentleman made to
help his Front Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield,
they would have had to explain why the Conservative Government in which
they both served, accepted the very clear evidence that it was
inappropriate to require charities and other voluntary organisations to
sell compulsorily, as they are now proposing. That would in effect be
expropriating the assets of charities. That was the fundamental reason
why the other place rejected the proposition when it was put
forward.
Mr.
Wright:
As ever, my right hon. Friend makes an amazing,
fantastic and accurate point. All I would say in response is that,
during the debate we all saw the looks on the faces of Opposition
Members when the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield was on his feet. I
will leave it at
that.
The amendment is
uncosted, which is irresponsible on the part of Her Majesty’s
Opposition. The large sum of £268 million a year could be going
towards our ambition for 45,000 new social homes per year, as part of
our overall target of 3 million homes by 2020. In that respect, I would
ask the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield to withdraw his
amendment.
New clause
22 almost flows in the opposite direction to new clause 8. As the hon.
Member for St. Ives quite rightly and eloquently said, it would free
local housing authorities to set whatever levels of right-to-buy
discount they choose, including no discount at all, subject to a limit
specified by the Secretary of State, if she chose to do
so.
As the new clause
was explained by the hon. Gentleman, I think that that is undesirable.
Tailoring
right-to-buy discount would not necessarily be an effective way of
addressing local housing matters. I agree with the point that local
housing considerations are best decided locally. For example, the
landlord could decide to lower the maximum discount to curb
right-to-buy sales locally; but, on learning what was intended, tenants
might decide to apply for the right to buy before it happened, in order
to beat the ticking clock, as pointed out by the right hon. Member for
North-West Hampshire. The right hon. Gentleman referred to it as a
“perverse
incentive”. In
a former life, I worked for an accountancy firm where we used to audit
ourselves. We audited large-scale voluntary transfers and we would see
people become somewhat nervous and apprehensive when changes were
introduced. One could chart the spike of right-to-buy applications just
before transfer of stock from a local authority took place. Naturally,
people felt apprehensive and thought that something might alter in
their security of tenure. That would be the unintended consequence of
the
amendment.
Andrew
George:
The Minister’s logic is that the currently
available discount would be available for all time, and that no
decision could be taken, whether at Government or local level, because
he fears a perverse incentive and outcome. That logic presupposes that
the tenants would know whether the decision would increase or decrease
the discount. It could create a perverse incentive that would be acting
against the tenants’ best interests if the local
authority’s decision was to increase the
discount.
Mr.
Wright:
But, the requirement for consultation would
establish the apprehension that would still lead to a rise in the
number of right-to-buy applications, which would reduce the discount
still further. There would be unintended consequences to the
amendment.
The hon.
Gentleman mentioned the possibility of no discount, which would be a
somewhat radical departure from the principal of the right-to-buy
scheme. For most tenants, I would suggest that, in practical terms, it
would mean ending any availability of right to buy whatsoever. I cannot
support such an extreme
measure.
The hon.
Gentleman said that the new clause would enable the Secretary of State
to specify the maximum discount that a local housing authority may set
in its area. I suggest, with gentle joshing, that that is at odds with
his approach in an earlier debate on new clauses 24 and 25. I would
also suggest to him that it is unnecessary, as the Secretary of State
already has the power under section 131(2) of the Housing Act 1985,
which states that:
“The discount shall not
in any case reduce the price by more than such sum as the Secretary of
State may by order
prescribe.”
The power is
already
there.
I
know that some who are involved in housing would welcome the kind of
local flexibility that we have discussed during consideration of the
new clause and earlier clauses. However, there is potential for
confusion, perverse incentives, and repercussions, and therefore I hope
that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his
amendment.
5.30
pm
Andrew
George:
Of course the new clause was intended as a probing
amendment and I intend to withdraw it in a second. I wish first to make
two points to the
Minister.
One is on
the joshing point that he made. Of course there was a reference to the
powers of the Secretary of State. That was because, following the
debate on new clauses 24 and 25, I would not want to denude the
Secretary of State or the Minister of all their powers. That would be
wrong. Hence the reference to giving the Secretary of State some
role.
Secondly, the
most substantial point that the Minister, backed rather oddly by a
former Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for North-West
Hampshire, can make is that the new clause would create a perverse
incentive for tenants and work against the objects of what a local
authority might be seeking to achieve by varying the discount level.
However, it would discourage any decision at any level, be it creating
a perverse incentive at the local authority level, or across the
country if a Secretary of State were to decide or consider deciding to
vary the discount
level.
I do not accept
that argument. I hoped that the Government would consider the
provision. After all, they have accepted variations of discount in some
circumstances—available in 41 areas, mainly in the south-east.
The principle therefore is not one that the Government find
unacceptable. I hope that in such circumstances the Minister will
consider that the right to buy, the impact that it has and the level at
which it is set, has varying impacts in different parts of the country.
He should therefore allow local authorities to set and vary the rate. I
beg to ask leave to withdraw the new
clause.
The
Chairman:
Order. There is no need to withdraw the new
clause as it is being discussed along with new clause
8.
Grant
Shapps:
It has been an interesting debate and I am sure
that most members of the Committee would agree. I remain grateful to my
right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire for giving me the
opportunity to make up for the failure of my filing system and get onto
the new clause. It revealed some interesting thoughts, attitudes and
almost inbuilt reactions to just the three words, “right to
buy”.
One
of the most interesting aspects is the simple maths involved. The
Minister seems to take the approach that simply says: when one sells a
house and builds another only one additional house has been created.
One has to recognise that somebody is living in the original house and
therefore the housing stock has been expanded. We may have gone a long
way to understand why there has been such difficulty in building the
required number of homes in the past 10 years and why as a nation we
will probably end up building fewer homes this year than last year.
That basic misunderstanding of mathematics has led to confusion within
the Government about the best way to go about building more homes. All
the facts and statistics are on our side. We built more homes, in
particular more social homes. New clause 8 proposed a way of building
even more. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that and give it
further consideration on Report.
If nothing
else, the debate was worth having because it gave the Minister the
opportunity to say to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West
Hampshire—to paraphrase—“I thank you and
Mrs. Thatcher for the right to buy”, which he
revealed has helped his family, as well as millions of
others.
I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the
motion.
Motion and
clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
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