PM revives ‘right to buy’ for housing association tenants

Boris Johnson is considering plans to give people who rent from housing associations the right to buy their homes at a discount. The prime minister has tasked his policy unit, led by Andrew Griffith, with reviving Margaret Thatcher’s housing policy for “generation rent”. There are about 2.5m households, or 5m people, in England who rent from housing associations and could benefit, although sources cautioned that policy development is at a very early stage with options being explored as to how it could work. Johnson is said to believe that an expanded version of the right to buy would help renters in the seats in the Midlands and the North, where he swept aside Labour in the 2019 election. Thatcher’s scheme allowed council tenants to buy their own homes, with almost 3m sold at discounted rates. The proposal for renters to be able to purchase their social homes at a discount appeared in David Cameron’s 2015 Conservative manifesto. A pilot was launched in the Midlands in 2018 under Theresa May and Johnson said he would consider new pilots in his 2019 manifesto. Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said the plan was “hare-brained” and “the opposite of what the country needs”. The Times (£) The FT (£) The Guardian