Friday 17 September 2010

'Right-to-buy' council house policy reviewed to appease Lib Dems

The government has begun a review of the "right to buy" scheme for council house tenants, calling into question one of Margaret Thatcher's most vaunted policies as it reaches out to Liberal Democrat backbenchers ahead of their party conference. The Lib Dems have been told the Tory housing minister Grant Shapps is looking for ways to increase the stock available to the swelling numbers on the waiting list. Shapps, who will attend the Lib Dem conference, is aware its rank and file want action on issues close to their hearts in return for support for the coalition.


For the Lib Dems, "right to buy" removes thousands of houses from circulation and prevents councils from being able to allocate homes to those on the lists. Tenants who have lived in a house for five years or more are able to buy their home. But with 4.5 million people on council housing waiting lists (1.8 million households) and an average of over five years to progress through to the front of the queue, Lib Dems are pushing for a reform of the system. A review of "right to buy" did not feature in the coalition agreement and Shapps said he would be extending it when he was shadow housing minister before the election. 

Any attempt to end the scheme will alarm many in the Conservative party. However, Shapps is supported in his review by Downing Street. He is reported to be aware that cities such as Hull have many more council houses than demand and so may decide to leave right to buy in place but has been persuaded that rural areas can not afford to allow a sale of stock at a time of soaring demand for council houses. Shapps is also looking at allowing councils to borrow against the value of some of the houses they own and use those assets to build more homes.

The issue of what to do about housing has been a running sore through the coalition. Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, is to lead a call at his party conference to oppose Cameron's plans to end lifetime tenancies in social housing and introduce fixed term tenancies. The move, supported by Shapps, was seen as a way of bringing more flexibility to the housing and labour markets. 

The emergency motion calls on the government to "rule out removing secure tenancies for current and future council tenants" and to "investigate alternative ways of managing occupancies when circumstances change, such as different levels of rent". The motion says that less than 20% of council tenants earn an above average wage and that fixed-term tenancies would lead to a lack of incentive for council tenants to earn more for their families. Hughes told Inside Housing: "Proposing this motion for conference is one obvious way we could move the debate forward and ensure the voice of Liberal Democrats is clearly heard."

In a further sign of tension between the two parties over housing, Richard Kemp, the leader of Liberal Democrats in local government launched a ferocious assault on Shapps: "He thinks that the inner city is not a place where people live but a place that people go through on the way to an opera. He and his boss David Cameron are in a slight muddle about how to deal with these people. Apparently whilst the rest of us like to live in homes in the community, poor people respond better if they are given buildings under conditions that will force them to move. I understand that the aim is to create what we in the Lib Dems call ghettoes."

Leftwing Lib Dem MPs are also lobbying against government plans to cut housing benefit announced in the budget. Bob Russell, MP for Colchester, accused the government of "economic cleansing" through its cuts and said low-income families would be "forced out of their neighbourhoods". The work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said he would see if he could temper the impact of the cuts necessary to cut the growing housing benefit bill.

A spokesperson for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "We have absolutely no plans to change the right to buy scheme, and it is not under review. Since its launch in the early 1980s, the right to buy scheme has helped thousands of people into home ownership and has helped create mixed communities."

The housing row came as an Ipsos/Mori poll showed Labour and Conservatives were both on 37% and the Liberal Democrats on 15%. For the first time since the election, more (47%) are dissatisfied with the government than satisfied (43%). Cameron and Nick Clegg are viewed more positively, with net satisfaction scores of +24 and +17 respectively. David Cameron's rating (57%) is the highest he has ever received (equalling June 2010).

Among Conservative supporters, Cameron is markedly more popular (with a net satisfaction score of +87) compared with Clegg's satisfaction among Liberal Democrat supporters (net score +46). Clegg is now more popular with Conservative supporters than supporters of his own party (net score of +66 among Conservatives).

Allegra Stratton and Patrick Wintour, the Guardian