The government is proposing a right-to-buy scheme for housing association tenants, where a new home will be built for every one sold off and mortgage lending rules will be loosened.
It is expected that the government will work with the private sector to build the new homes, but the exact process is not yet clear.
Housing secretary Michael Gove pledged a “like-for-like, one-for-one replacement” under the scheme, which is to be funded by a previously announced £3bn levy on new developments.
Ahead of a speech planned by prime minister Boris Johnson in Blackpool, it was leaked that the plan is to allow housing benefits payments to be used to make monthly payments on mortgages.
Gove told the Times that a problem with Margaret Thatcher’s famous policy of allowing tenants the right to buy council homes was “we didn’t always replace homes one for one”.
This will see a new generation of “posh prefabs” rolled out across the country, according to a report in the Sun.
This proposal to give housing association tenants right to buy comes up again and again every few years, and always goes nowhere.
Why?
Because housing associations are private companies and the proposal means forcing a private company to sell their assets at a discount.
— George Turner (@georgenturner) June 9, 2022
Gove also let it be known that he wants to loosen rules that limit high loan-to-value mortgages, which was brought in after the 2008 financial crisis.
Johnson’s speech will not include a plan to cut income tax, according to reports, which had been a demand of many backbench Tory MPs, with the plan being to hold this back for a planned election-winning ploy in 2024.
“Over the next few weeks, the government will be setting out reforms to help people cut costs in every area of household expenditure, from food to energy to childcare to transport and housing,” he will say.