According to a recent Daily Telegraph report the government is considering rolling out the Right To Buy scheme solely from England’s council tenants to housing association’s’ residents; however a former Housing Secretary now wants it to be extended further to all tenants including those in private rector ‘homes’.

Image credit: Pexels

The article says that the Right To Buy scheme was introduced under Margaret Thatcher’s tutelage over forty years ago for council tenants, and now Boris Johnson is weighing up whether to now make this an opportunity for around the 2.6m of renters in housing association ‘residences’. 

The government is  currently looking at whether the tens of billions paid out in housing benefits should be used to help recipients successfully apply for mortgages.

Obviously the idea will appeal to those Red Wall voters in the north of England and the Midlands who voted Conservative for the first time in the last election.

Robert Jenrick  the former Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government until September 2021, has always been regarded as a loyal ally of the Prime Minister, has just said he is fully behind the idea of extending the scheme to tenants across the rental sector.

A few days ago Generation Rent’s deputy director posted on Twitter saying he would “love it - love it - if [Jenrick] was in favour of right to buy in the private sector.”

Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell when interviewed in 2019 by the Financial Times said he hoped private tenants would be able to receive a discount, but later told the BBC that Labour would make sure of a “fair price assessment” if any PRS tenant wanted to buy their rented ‘home’.

McDonnell said: "I don't expect anyone to lose out”.

Around 1.6 million council homes were sold under the Right To Buy scheme and although homeowners rose from 55 per cent in 1972 up to 72 per cent in 2004, the policy is also responsible for massively depleting social housing availability.