Will Hughes succeed in stirring up trouble over Right to Buy?
Peter Hoskin 2:00pm
Simon Hughes led the angry response to David Cameron's thoughts on social housing, and
now he's stirring it up again. In an interview with the South London Press – picked up by Sunder Katwala over at Next Left – the Lib Dem deputy leader has attacked the Right to Buy, saying that local councils should decide
whether to offer it or not. Given the Thatcherite roots of the policy, there's a firecracker quality to Hughes's comments: lobbed into the debate, and designed to provoke the Tories.
I'm not sure the Tories will be too perturbed by Hughes's intervention, though. Of course many of them are proud and supportive of Thatcher's Right to Buy policy – and rightly so. But many also understand that it has its problems and, in the absence of new building, could well have contributed to that 5-million-person-long waiting list for social housing. Even Cameron's proposed solution may impose de facto limits on the Right to Buy. As Sunder explains:
Lurking behind all this is the difficult question of how to create more affordable housing in the private sector. As Andy Mayer argues in a considered post over at Liberal Vision, stopping the Right to Buy would "just increase the barriers between the social and private sector, ensuring that it is harder for aspirational tenants to move on". But if the system is to be truly liquid, then there needs to be an abundance of attainable housing at the top end of that process, as well as at the bottom."Yet, perhaps ironically, David Cameron's own proposals to remove security of tenure could well lead to the right to buy being lost or weakened, albeit by the back door. Tenants need to have five years residency to be eligible, so if fixed term tenancies were of a shorter length, the right would be lost by those tenants. And part of the point of the Cameron approach is for council housing to be still more focused on those in greatest need. If the result was to residualise council housing further predominantly among those out-of-work, then the right to buy will be rather more hypothetical anyway if fewer social housing tenants could afford to exercise it."
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JohnAnt
August 7th, 2010 4:40pm Report this comment"supportive of Thatcher's Right to Buy policy - and rightly so."
Rightly so? Why, exactly?
I never understood why it was a Conservative policy to allow tenants who happened to be living in a council property to buy their homes at a vast discount, and receive extra-cheap mortgages at a time of high bank and lending rates.
It stole taxpaid council properties for private use, without gaining any social benefit, beyond providing today's baby boomers with a source of cheap wealth on selling up. Many in London paid off their tiny mortgage within 6 years and have been sitting on a sub-letting and equity fortune ever since. And the freeholds remain firmly in council hands.
I assumed back in the 1980s that the only advantage of the pseudo-sales was electoral. I still can't see any other point to it.
Bruce, UK
August 7th, 2010 4:43pm Report this commentThus do I ever make my fool my purse.
Tankus
August 7th, 2010 6:06pm Report this commentWho wants to live next door to a council estate ?
TGF UKIP
August 7th, 2010 6:52pm Report this commentGuido has plenty of coverage on this as he does on The Sunlight Centre's investigation of Huhne's election expenses (not mentioned of course on Coffee House for obvious reasons.) Also Guido's Ed Balls leadership bulletin is not to be missed and neither even more enjoyably is the uncovering of Kinnock Jnr's tax dodging in Denmark.
Guido at order-order.com, as always unmissable.
Marcher Baron
August 7th, 2010 6:54pm Report this comment"[Thatcher's Right To Buy] has its problems and, in the absence of new building, could well have contributed to that 5-million-person-long waiting list for social housing." Nothing to do with Labour flooding the country with thousands of fast-breeding immigrants, then?
Mark Cannon
August 7th, 2010 10:58pm Report this commentHughes is obviously bent (sic) on stirring up trouble. This is because (1) he regards himself as a LibDem big hitter but he has not been given a ministerial post;(2) his seat is very vulnerable if he is seen to be an ally of the Conservatives. But who cares if he loses it? Certainly not Peter Tachell.
Sam ARMSTRONG
August 8th, 2010 1:02am Report this commentJohnAnt: Right to Buy was not about selling cheap homes to the poor. That was simply the cover story. The real reason was that the Blessed Margaret needed to convert people into conservatives, so she gave them something to conserve. It was a deeply, deeply electoral tactic.
So the baby boomers cashed in on it. Good for them. The next generation (mine) is now entering their forties in a world with no credit, so this amassed money will be passed down and used, as I will, to invest in more property. When I go, I will leave it to the next generation to buy their property. And so on.... This is how you build a stable nation and society.
You can, I suppose, console yourself with the fact that inheritance tax will swipe back quite a lot of that and can be used for social reasons (ie. pissed up the wall).
Holly ......
August 8th, 2010 9:00pm Report this commentIt would appear that Hughes is part of the Lib Dem problem NOT the coalition.
He read the mood of the people so very wrong
over council housing.
Are the Lib Dems and Labour trying to tell the country that ONLY Conservative voters bought their council homes?
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