Right to Buy — House of Commons, 2015-10-12
Topic: Housing
Brandon Kenneth Lewis (Conservative, Centre-right): As stated in our manifesto, the Government want to give housing association tenants the same homeownership opportunities as council tenants. Since the introduction of right to buy, nearly 2 million households have been helped to realise their aspiration of owning their own home. There have been 46,000 sales since April 2010, including more than 40,000 under the reinvigorated scheme introduced in 2012 by the last Government The Government want to help families achieve their dream of homeownership, but at the moment about 1.3 million housing association tenants cannot benefit from the discounts that the last Government introduced. We want to give housing association tenants the same homeownership opportunities as council tenants. At present, some housing association tenants have the preserved right to buy at full discount levels or the right to acquire at a much lower discount level, while others have simply no rights at all. This cannot be right. The Government want to end this inequity for tenants and extend the higher discounts to housing associations On 7 October, the Prime Minister announced that a deal had been agreed with the National Housing Federation and its members giving housing association tenants the opportunity to buy their home at an equivalent discount to the right to buy. This delivers our manifesto commitment to extend the benefits of right to buy to 1.3 million tenants. In summary, the deal will enable 1.3 million families to purchase a home at right to buy-level discounts, subject to the overall availability of funding for the scheme and the eligibility requirements The presumption is that the housing association will sell the tenant the property in which they live, the Government will compensate it for the discount offered to the tenant and the association will retain the sales receipts to enable it to reinvest in the delivery of new extra homes. Housing associations will use the sales proceeds to deliver new supply and have the flexibility, but not the obligation, to replace rented homes with other tenures, such as shared ownership. The Government will continue to work with the National Housing Federation and its members to develop new and innovative products so that every tenant can have the opportunity to buy or have a stake in their own home As part of the agreement, the Government will also implement deregulatory measures to support housing associations in their objectives to help support tenants into homeownership and deliver an additional supply of new homes. Boosting the number of sales to tenants will generate an increase in receipts for housing associations, enabling them to reinvest in the delivery of new homes. Housing associations will be able to use sales proceeds to deliver that new extra supply and will have the flexibility to replace homes with tenures such as shared ownership. Housing associations have a strong record in delivering new homes, as evidenced by the way we have exceeded our affordable homes target, delivering nearly 186,000 of them—16,000 more than originally planned for the period to 2015 We want more people to be able to buy a home of their own, and extending the right to buy is a key part of that. It will give tenants who have that aspiration something to strive for that is achievable and give housing association tenants the opportunity for the first time to purchase their home at the same discount levels currently enjoyed by council tenants. We will now work closely with the sector on the implementation of the deal, and of course I will update hon. Members as we move through the stages of implementation.