By Martin Wicks

The Labour Campaign for Council Housing has produced a statement calling on Labour to commit to ending Right to Buy. We are asking Party members at every level, trades unions and tenants organisations, to sign the statement. The overwhelming view of the members was shown in the resolutions passed at the 2019 and 2021 Conferences which included ending RTB. It was incorporated into the 2019 Manifesto. At the 2021 conference Lucy Powell said it was the right thing to do and it was what the members wanted.

In her speech to the recent Labour conference Lisa Nandy said that, “the idea of a home for life handed on in common ownership to future generations is an idea worth fighting for.”

We agree. But RTB ends the common ownership and turns a council home into a private asset, 40% of which end up in the private rented sector, with their much higher rents. In a Conference fringe meeting, Lisa said that the policy was under review. It’s important therefore that a strong message is given to the leadership that the membership want a commitment to end RTB.

In Scotland and Wales the loss of stock has been halted by ending RTB. In England, since it remains in place, stock numbers decrease every year. After a fall in sales in 2020/21 to less than 7,000 (probably as a result of the pandemic), 2021/22 saw a return to the trend of more than 10,000. Since 2012/13, 107,472 homes have been sold (see the table below). According to the statistics sent in by councils each year to the Department for Levelling-up, Housing & Communities, since the coalition government increased the discount in 2012, through to March 2021, there were 27,508 new builds and councils bought 15,172 properties (many ex-council properties). Add to the equation 26,408 demolitions and we find a fall in council housing stock of 104,693.

Local authority statistical data returns, England

	Demolitions	New builds	Acquisitions	RTB	Total stock
2021/22	Not available	NA	NA	10,878	NA
2020/21	1,627	3,859	3,361	6,994	1,575,574
2019/20	2,504	3,658	3,040	10,599	1,578,852
2018/19	2,391	4,834	2,053	11,059	1,583,838
2017/18	2,253	3,667	1,713	12,865	1,590,439
2016/17	2,518	3,363	1,472	13,433	1,600,011
2015/16	3,623	3,118	1,115	12,220	1,610,142
2014/15	3,042	2,738	1,252	12,222	1,640,420
2013/14	4,361	1,289	790	11,261	1,667,074
2012/13	4,089	982	376	5,941	1,680,267
Total	26,408	27,508	15,172	107,472	-104,693

With fewer than 1.6 million council homes left in England, the acute shortage of homes available and extortionate house prices (both median and lower quartile house prices are more than ten times earnings) force people into the expensive and often poor-quality private rented sector (PRS). Despite many councils changing the criteria for being on the housing waiting list (finessing the figures downwards) there are more than 1.1 million households on waiting lists. However, last year there were fewer than 80,000 new tenancies issued by councils. When you take account of demolitions to add to RTB sales, councils have to build around 12,000 a year just to replace lost stock. That level of building has not happened since 1990.

Ending RTB is cost-free and in stopping the loss of homes it would mean that all new council building would increase the stock and open up the prospect of beginning to cut the number of households on the housing waiting lists.

From talking to senior party figures, the hesitation of the leadership over this question appears to be that they are concerned that the Tories will condemn them for ‘being opposed to aspiration’. This is an argument which is not difficult to deal with. Before RTB was introduced, council housing facilitated home ownership insofar as the reasonable rents enabled tenants to save up a deposit, buy a home on the market and hand back the keys to the council to house somebody else from the waiting list.

Given the acute shortage of council homes and the fact that you have to be disadvantaged and poor to be given a tenancy, very few tenants can in any case afford a mortgage even with the sizeable discounts available. There’s no great swathe of votes to be won.

The stigma towards council housing and council tenants was created as a result of the promotion of home ownership as a tenure superior to renting. Yet people who cannot afford or do not want a mortgage do not lack ‘aspiration’. They have different aspirations. During the pandemic millions of people began to reassess what was important in life for them. Personal acquisitions do not ensure contentment. Far from providing security, a mortgage can produce insecurity and stress, as millions of people are beginning to find out, as interest rates have increased beyond 6%.

Council housing with a secure tenancy can rescue a new generation from the PRS. Ending RTB, combined with a largescale council house building programme – which the 2019 and 2021 Labour Conferences voted for – would result in hundreds of thousands of people being given new tenancies and ending their enforced presence in the market. This will make it less of a sellers’ market and is likely to bring down prices in the PRS and for market sales.

Ending RTB is a precondition for increasing council housing stock, without which there can be no resolution to the housing crisis. Help us to get this message across by signing the statement yourself, getting your party branch, CLP, Labour Group, union branch, or tenants organisation to support it.

Martin Wicks is Secretary of the Labour Campaign for Council Housing

Statement: Labour should commit to ending Right to Buy

“We the undersigned agree with Lisa Nandy that “the idea of a home for life handed on in common ownership to future generations is an idea worth fighting for.” That requires the ending of the disastrous Right to Buy policy. In Scotland and Wales it has already been ended.

In England there are now less than 1.6 million council homes left. Even if councils were able to keep all receipts for sales they would have to build more than 12,000 council homes a year just to replace homes sold and demolished. That many haven’t been built since 1990.

RTB not only means the loss of homes but councils losing rental stream, leaving them with less money for the maintenance and renewal of their existing stock.

Many homes sold under RTB end up in the private rented sector; an estimated 40%. This drives up the housing benefit bill because of the much higher private rents.

Labour Conferences in 2019 and 2021 voted overwhelmingly for RTB to be ended. It was incorporated in the 2019 manifesto. At the 2021 conference Lucy Powell said that it is the right thing to do and that is what the members want.

Ending RTB will stop the loss of homes and ensure that for the first time since it was introduced all new council house building will increase the stock and enable the waiting lists to begin to fall. It is also without cost and will stop the loss of rental income to councils.

We therefore call on Labour to commit to ending RTB when in government.”

To sign the statement, email labourcouncilhousingcampaign@gmail.com

Image: Council Housing, https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2157845. Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)