Boris Johnson will promise to boost home ownership later – as he attempts to repair relations with Tory MPs who revolted against his leadership.
London(UK)- The Prime Minister is expected to say in a speech in Lancashire that he wants to extend the right to buy to people who rent from housing associations.
Downing Street said Mr Johnson would confirm ambitions to boost housing supplies and help more people onto the property market.
The changes to allow people to use their housing benefit to pay a mortgage are understood to be part of this, although the policy – and further details – have not been confirmed.
Responding to reports on the policy, Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, wrote on Twitter: “Let’s see the detail but there’s no way [the Treasury] will agree to allow housing benefit to be used to pay a mortgage – huge cost implications.”
Housing benefits, which help low-income or unemployed people pay their rent, costs the government around £30bn a year, a large proportion of which goes to private landlords. A person is not usually eligible for housing benefits if they have a mortgage.
Labour said the policies sounded like a “rehash” of old Conservative pledges and would show the government was “out of ideas”.
Council tenants in England have been able to buy their homes at a discount since October 1980, when the policy was introduced under former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
But the same is not true for people who rent from housing associations unless their property was once owned by a local authority and they lived in it during this period.
The right-to-buy policy has been blamed for exhausting supplies of social housing that have not been replaced but have long held a totemic status within parts of the Tory party.
In England in 2020-21, around four million households – 17% of the total – lived in rented social housing. Of those, 2.4 million – 10% of the total – rented from housing associations, while 1.6 million – 7% of the total – rented from local authorities.
Housing replacement guarantees
Proposals to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants on a voluntary basis began under ex-prime minister David Cameron.
However, only pilot schemes have since been implemented, which the Conservatives pledged to extend in their 2019 election manifesto.
The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, has said any extension to the right to buy should include a guarantee that any homes sold would be replaced, a commitment the BBC has been told will be included in the government’s plans.
In a recent statement, the federation said replacing housing association stock is difficult to achieve in practice because the money generated through sales is not enough to build new social homes.
Downing Street said Mr Johnson would confirm ambitions to boost housing supplies and help more people onto the property market.
The changes to allow people to use their housing benefit to pay a mortgage are understood to be part of this, although the policy – and further details – have not been confirmed.
Responding to reports on the policy, Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, wrote on Twitter: “Let’s see the detail but there’s no way [the Treasury] will agree to allow housing benefit to be used to pay a mortgage – huge cost implications.”
He added that broader reforms to the mortgage market would likely be needed to bring about significant increases in home ownership – such as relaxing restrictions on the amount people can borrow to buy a home.
According to extracts of Mr Johnson’s speech released by No 10, he will promise further measures “over the next few weeks” on living costs, amid 40-year high inflation driven by increases in energy costs.
He is expected to say these will target food, energy, childcare, transport and housing – although no details were given.
