Quote Originally Posted by jon1959 View Post
The Right To Buy wasn't only about selling the better stock at a big discount to those who chose to take advantage.

Yes, their families benefitted. Yes, they initially lived in the property paying a mortgage not a rent.

But a very high % of former Right To Buy homes have been sold on to private landlords (not just in London - all around the country) who now charge 2x/3x/5x the rent that would have been charged under the Council. Those most in need are priced out - or else we all pay through general taxation for the housing benefit that ends up in private landlords' pockets.

The subsidy on the Right To Buy sale didn't come from central government (general taxpayers didn't fund this bonanza) it washed through Council's Housing Revenue Accounts. Councils were generally paying for the cost of housing they built over 60 years (via the Public Works Loans Boards). When the rental income stopped the debt remained. The reduced capital receipt normally didn't cover the remaining debt - so all the other tenants paid for the RTB subsidy through their rents and through reduced improvement and repair services!

And for most of the time the Right To Buy has been in place it has been impossible for Councils with any historic debt to spend on new build housing (or buying existing housing to add to their stock). It was outside the rules. Governments said one thing, but then stopped it happening by the way the housing subsidy system operated. That was a deliberate decision.

It has become possible for a few more Councils to build new housing (small scale - a tiny fraction of what was lost through Right To Buy) when the Self Financing Housing Revenue Account changes came in from 2012. But it really is small scale - and for most of the UK the Right To Buy rules (that have changed over time - and John Prescott came closest to ending it) mean that new home can be lost within a few years and again the Council and its tenants will have to fund a huge discount to the 'lucky' sitting tenant.

The whole system was set up as a cynical way of buying Tory votes on Council estates - and making tenants who didn't or couldn't join the party pay the cost. It also transferred over a million homes from Councils (where rents are too high anyway) to private landlords who often charge multiples of a Council rent - and the rest of us pick up the tab in housing benefits.

The (preserved) Right To Buy also applies to some Housing Associations where there was a past stock transfer from a Council.

It is probably the biggest single contributor over more than four decades to the UK's housing crisis. There is no justification for it as a policy to improve UK housing (in fact many RTB homes that initially got the new door were/are in worse condition than Council homes that have gone through the Decent Homes Programme). It is 100% political and a disaster.
Agree completely. Almost everything that has happened as a result could have been forecast.