Nandy on RTB: telling social tenants they can’t own their homes is “unacceptable”

Lisa Nandy has said it would be “unacceptable” to deny “working-class people” the chance to buy their homes, including through the Right to Buy.

The shadow housing secretary, in an interview with The Times, elaborated on the reason Labour is not proposing to scrap the policy, which is controversial in some circles as it has led to the loss of homes from the social housing sector.

“I’m very strongly of the opinion that Labour telling working-class people that they can’t own their own home is unacceptable, said Nandy. She said there is a big divide in Britain today “between people who have assets and people who do not”,

Under Right to Buy, qualifying council housing tenants can buy their homes with a discount of up to £96,000., or £127,900 in London.

The scheme, launched in its original guise by Margaret Thatcher in early 1980s, has led to more than two million council homes being sold off.

“It’s become a very totemic issue for a lot of people on the left because it cost us a million council homes in the first few years and we have never been able to replace them,” she said.

She added: “It is a disaster – no question about it – but my answer is not that you scrap the Right to Buy, it is that you work out a proper policy for how you replace the homes.”

>>See also: Nandy vows to end Whitehall’s ‘cowardice’ over development

>>See also: Eight things you should know about Lisa Nandy and housing

Efforts by the government to ensure one-for-one replacement of additional homes sold under the re-invigorated Right to Buy scheme launched by the Cameron government in 2012 have only been partially successful. Data published last summer shows there were 41,743 replacement homes delivered between 2012 and 2022 against a target of 52,946.

Labour is reportedly looking at ways of ensuring homes sold off are replaced with like-for-like new social housing. It is understood one option under consideration is to allow local development corporations, rather than the Treasury, to keep the receipts of sales to spend on new homes. The Times also reports Labour is looking at how to set the Right to Buy discount at a level to enable the corporations to protect the quality and size of its overall stock.

Labour has been approached for comment.