Calls to end right-to-buy

Some homes sold for less than cost

A leading Exeter councillor says she would be ‘happy’ to see the end of the right-to-buy scheme.

Councillor Rachel Sutton’s (Labour, Exwick) comments come after Devon’s housing problem was recently declared a crisis at county hall, with a lack of affordable housing one of the key issues.

Speaking to the BBC’s Politics South West, she said right-to-buy, first introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1980, meant that “good quality family homes were sold off and the money wasn’t ring-fenced to provide more social and affordable housing.”

The scheme gives council tenants the option to purchase their homes at significant discounts if they have lived there for at least three years – usually for at least 35 per cent off the market rate. It can eventually go up to a maximum of 70 per cent or £84,600, whichever is lower.

Research published on the House of Commons website earlier this year showed the percentage of all homes rented from social providers, including council homes, fell from 31 per cent in 1979 to 17 per cent in 2020.

Cllr Sutton added: “Council houses that are built can still be sold under right-to-buy. We can’t build council houses and ensure that they are there in perpetuity.”

When asked if she would like to get rid of the scheme, Cllr Sutton responded: “I would be happy to get rid of [it], yes,” but she added: “I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think it’s too well entrenched now.”

“But as I say, the problem is you build good quality homes, people move into them. And after a few years, they think, ‘oh, we’d like to live here permanently, we can get a mortgage, we’ll buy it’ and then we’re right back to where we were having to start all over again.”

Earlier this month, the Conservative leader of Devon County Council, John Hart, also appeared to criticise right-to-buy when describing the county’s shortage of affordable housing as a “crisis.”

He said: “We have houses being built for rent, which at times, depending on the organisation, when somebody’s been in it for three years, they have the right to buy it at a discount. And the discount sometimes is below what it cost to build. That is another nonsense.”

Cllr Hart outlined measures, backed by all parties, to create a new ‘strategic housing taskforce’ to try to tackle Devon’s housing problem, in partnership with its district councils and other partners.

They also agreed to explore whether the council could offer accommodation to key workers to attract them to work for the authority, and to lobby MPs to press for tax loopholes on holiday rental homes to be tightened.