My Lords, before we start debate on the first group, I rise to remind the House of the rules on declaring interests. Noble Lords should declare any relevant financial interest the first time they speak at each stage of a Bill. This means that, in Committee, relevant financial interests should be declared during the first group on which a noble Lord speaks. Thereafter, the declaration does not need to be repeated in Committee. Declarations should be specific and brief. Members should briefly indicate the nature of their financial interest and not simply refer to their entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests.
1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Abolition of Right to Buy(1) The Right to Buy scheme is abolished.(2) The Housing Act 1985 is amended as follows—(a) omit Part 5 (the right to buy);(b) omit schedule 4;(c) omit schedule 5;(d) omit schedule 6;(e) omit schedule 6A;(f) omit schedule 9A.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to abolish the Right to Buy scheme.
1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Abolition of Right to Buy(1) The Right to Buy scheme is abolished.(2) The Housing Act 1985 is amended as follows—(a) omit Part 5 (the right to buy);(b) omit schedule 4;(c) omit schedule 5;(d) omit schedule 6;(e) omit schedule 6A;(f) omit schedule 9A.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to abolish the Right to Buy scheme.
My Lords, I begin with an apology for not taking part at Second Reading. My fellow Green Peer, my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, took part but is unable to be here today so we are doing a little tag team effort. I am afraid that I will not be here on Wednesday, but I expect that she will be back on Report.
I also begin with a little bit of explanation, because the groupings today are technically complicated. Clause 1 would abolish the right to buy. To introduce that involves me opposing various clauses in some subsequent groups. I am opposing Clauses 1 to 9. This is all for technical reasons. I have not pulled this out as a separate group. That is how it was arranged. That is why we have this slightly odd-looking arrangement—it is for technical reasons.
Clause 1 provides for the abolition of right to buy. This is heading in the direction that the Government propose for the Bill but going further. Others who are opposing other elements in the Bill are seeking to reverse the Government’s direction, but to be clear: I am aiming for us to go further. The case for abolishing right to buy is not some theoretical proposal. Scotland and Wales have already done it successfully. We have a central question here: should social housing be treated as a long-term public asset or continue to be sold off during a housing crisis?
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I will briefly mention one more report: the UK Housing Review from the Chartered Institute of Housing. It notes the now very well-known figure that 40% of right-to-buy homes are now privately rented. That is a straight privatisation: out of public hands and affordable rent and into sky-high rents that then go to private benefit. What does this actually mean? I come back to the contrast I started with. Scotland’s earlier policy change and comparatively strong social housing completions mean that new lettings to new social tenants have fallen by only 3% there since 2014-15. By contrast, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have seen about one-quarter fewer lettings during the same period. That means that so many people are in insecure, often all too unaffordable, housing.
I will briefly mention one more report: the UK Housing Review from the Chartered Institute of Housing. It notes the now very well-known figure that 40% of right-to-buy homes are now privately rented. That is a straight privatisation: out of public hands and affordable rent and into sky-high rents that then go to private benefit. What does this actually mean? I come back to the contrast I started with. Scotland’s earlier policy change and comparatively strong social housing completions mean that new lettings to new social tenants have fallen by only 3% there since 2014-15. By contrast, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have seen about one-quarter fewer lettings during the same period. That means that so many people are in insecure, often all too unaffordable, housing.
Surely it is past time for England to follow the lead of Scotland and Wales and end right to buy altogether, rather than simply attenuate it, as the Government are planning. I beg to move.
My Lords, I hope the House will not agree with Amendment 1. I feel a little bit personal about this because the amendment knocks out huge chunks of the Housing Act 1985, which I put on the statute book 40 years ago.
The noble Baroness talked about the erosion of the social housing stock. However, 17% of the housing stock in this country is social housing. That is roughly double the EU average of 9.3%, so already we are way out of line with our European neighbours in our provision of social housing. But I oppose this amendment because if one looks at Clause 9, it makes it clear that 100% of capital receipts from the right to buy will be ploughed back into social housing. So it is exactly the opposite of what the noble Baroness said, that the right to buy would increase the waiting time. What would increase the waiting time is acceptance of this amendment, because it would deny local authorities the capital receipts which would still accrue to them, so I disagree with her fundamentally.
There are other reasons for disagreeing with Amendment 1. For millions of people—1.8 million people—it was a foot on the property ladder for those who simply could not otherwise afford it, and many of those against the right to buy are people who own their own home. It gave people financial security which they would not otherwise have had. It became no longer the preserve of those on middle or higher incomes, and it gave something back after paying years of rent. Also, in the long term, it can reduce dependency, because those who bought their home now have an asset that can be taken into account if and when they move into care. There are wider benefits that we touched on at Second Reading, which I will not repeat. The right to buy helped break down the monolithic nature of some of our local authority estates. I very much hope that the Government, and indeed others in the House, will resist Amendment 1.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to take part in this debate in Committee. I will not reiterate the comments I made at Second Reading, because I talked then about family provision in social housing and we will discuss that specific issue in later groups. I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley on her promotion to the Front Bench, and it would be remiss not to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, on her promotion. I think it is a promotion—anyway, she is back on the Front Bench.
As has already been said by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, right to buy was one of the most transformative policies in British political history. It resulted in 58% of people owning their homes in 1981, being boosted to 69% by 2001, although that figure has now fallen back to 63%. Boosting home ownership boosts self-reliance, and 81% of people in most recent polls support the concept of owning their own home and being part of a property-owning democracy. In fact, 1.9 million homes were sold following the Housing Act 1980 to date, affecting 4.5 million social tenants. As we heard at Second Reading, right to buy improves social mobility, especially for those working people on low or modest incomes. We also heard demonstrable, empirical evidence from the London School of Economics about the impact being in homes that were bought under right to buy had on the educational attainment of children and young people. That was a longitudinal study, as noble Lords will remember.
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a part-owner of rented property in West Yorkshire.
One of the strikingly important things for me, and I hope for all noble Lords, is the positive outcomes for young people exposed to the right-to-buy scheme from the 1980s. This is not wishful thinking on my part; it is clearly shown in research from the London School of Economics. I referred to this at Second Reading, but it is worth reminding noble Lords about.
The right to buy guaranteed detectable, sizeable school performance gains among young people exposed to it, increasing good grades in high-stakes exams. There is also evidence that there is an income effect, which gives more financial stability to households through home ownership, and there is a crime reduction effect from public housing tenants becoming owners of their own home. It is disappointing that such prejudice against right to buy is likely to remove from social housing tenants the opportunities which right to buy has created for so many.
My Lords, it is good to kick off our first day in Committee on this important Bill. As noble Lords will know from our comments and speeches at Second Reading, we broadly support the Bill, so I will endeavour not to make Second Reading speeches and to be as brief as possible, given our support for it.
We support tighter restrictions on right to buy—I think the evidence is clear—but we do not believe in its total abolition. As was said over and over by noble Lords at Second Reading, over 2 million houses have been sold this way since 1980 but nearly 1 million more have been sold than replaced. Looking at last year’s figures, 7,500 homes were sold and only 3,600 were replaced. More worrying was the net loss of nearly 4,000 homes last year. Losses outstripped gains. This is not sustainable, yet the need grows. Homelessness rates are growing. The number of families in temporary accommodation is growing. My local authority is now reaching the point that many others have already reached with the impact on their budget of temporary accommodation.
However, we believe that a total ban is not the right answer, which is why we cannot support Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, because housing need is not the same everywhere and local councils understand their own housing pressures best. In some areas, right to buy should definitely be paused; there should be a moratorium. In others, it should be more tightly controlled, but always—in the view of our Benches—with one condition: homes sold must at least be replaced on a one-for-one basis, if not better.
My Lords, I declare an interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire. I add my congratulations to those offered to the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, on returning to the Front Bench. I thank noble Lords for their contributions on this first day of Committee. This amendment would abolish right to buy altogether, and, in doing so, would remove one of the most significant routes into home ownership available to social housing tenants. The Conservative Government introduced right to buy, which was founded on the simple belief that ownership should not be the preserve of the wealthy or the fortunate few. Conservatives have long believed that people should have the opportunity to own their own home, build an asset, and enjoy the security and independence that home ownership brings. It is a hand up, not a handout.
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More than 2 million households have benefited from right to buy—ordinary working families who, in many cases, had never previously imagined that home ownership was within their reach. Growing up, I had many friends whose families benefited from it, including some noble Lords in this House, and I have personally seen the transformational benefits. Right to buy gave them security, independence and a greater stake in their community that they could pass on to their children—a rung up the ladder to improve their lives and those of their families. As was raised by my noble friend Lady Eaton, LSE research has shown significant educational benefits for children in families who have exercised the right to buy.
Right to buy is not the problem; it is part of the solution. As my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham mentioned, it could provide the resources to build more social homes. As we will come on to later in this Bill, we believe—as does the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill—in at least a one-for-one replacement. That means two homes rather than one; it means two families, rather than one family, having a home, and it means a reduction in council waiting lists. In discussions, the Minister has said that the Government want to exceed that target. We share that ambition and would be very pleased if it was achieved, but if that is the case, how does it make sense to ban or curtail right to buy, if that would deliver more social housing? It is all rather puzzling. Banning right to buy not only benefits existing tenants but will result in additional social homes, so why would you ban or restrict it?
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In Scotland, right to buy ended on 1 August 2016. It has been estimated that since then, 15,500 social homes in Scotland have been saved for the public. That is a lot of housing—a lot of households living in their community and children being able to continue to go to the same school. The sort of stability that social housing has provided has continued in Scotland, but here in England we continue to see families torn out of their communities and a continual turnover. In Scotland, Dr Mary Taylor, the CEO of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, said:
“SFHA is delighted that all forms of the right to buy policy in Scotland have now come to an end and this hasn’t come a moment too soon. Right to buy has had its day and has no place in modern Scotland”.
Wales came somewhat after Scotland with the Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Act 2018. The Labour Welsh Government said that these sales were increasing waiting times for social housing and reducing the access to affordable housing, which is a statement of the obvious. Ministers also argued—I acknowledge that the Government are doing something about this—that councils and housing associations had the confidence to build without fear that they would immediately lose that housing.
The Labour Welsh Housing Minister at the time, Rebecca Evans, said:
“By protecting the stock of social housing in Wales, we are ensuring it is available for the long term to provide safe, secure and affordable homes for the people of Wales”.
This is no longer an experiment. It is established policy across much of the UK.
We discussed the negative impacts of the right-to-buy policy extensively at Second Reading. I do not intend to go over all the same ground but will highlight a couple of points. I draw first on the public wealth aspect of this. A report from the Common Wealth think tank, Wrong to Sell: How Right to Buy Gave Away Billions in Public Wealth, described right to buy as one of the largest giveaways in UK history. It has led to a situation where one in six private tenants in England rents a former local authority home, with much greater cost and often worse maintenance, without the democratic oversight that you get with council housing.
Considering the overall value of that, the report estimated that homes sold by English local authorities through right to buy are now worth £430 billion in 2024 prices. This is only part of the great privatisation, but this estimate says that this a bit more than the £400 billion that we have lost by selling off public land into private hands. This has also meant a structural shift towards higher-cost private renting. We know how much the cost of private renting is affecting so many households—so many communities—particularly the young. There is also increased long-term housing benefit expenditure. I hear from my right a lot of concern about the welfare Bill—this is one of the very significant drivers of it. There is also the exposure to market volatility.
I must say in passing that the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, are always sincere and well-resourced with research, but on this occasion I cannot agree with her for the reasons that my noble friend made clear. Capital receipts from right to buy were £51 billion, of which £47 billion was retained and remitted to His Majesty’s Treasury. The most recent sales in England in 2024-25 raised almost £800 million from 7,494 sales.
The important point to remember is that between 2012 and 2025, 48,000 units were replaced directly from recycled right to buy receipts back into the social housing stock. It is also important to nuance the arguments and remember that we had the renaissance of housing associations and alternative housing providers in that period, so it is not altogether correct to look at council housing and social housing just within the context of local authority housing.
There are a number of myths about right to buy, which is one of the reasons why I oppose the noble Baroness’s amendment. As my noble friend said, the level of social housing that we have is still high by international standards. I think we are fourth in Europe out of about 25 countries—significantly more than France, Italy, Germany and other large countries.
The fall in public sector housing construction began well before the advent of right to buy in 1980. Social housing waiting lists were, in fact, bizarrely stable when right to buy was at its most popular in the 1980s. There is a reason for that: social housing waiting lists were derived as a function of demand, not supply. So, in the period between 1981 and 1997, social housing waiting lists fell from 1.2 million to 1 million, in a period when we were selling off 100,000 council homes under right to buy. The problem, of course, was that the wider housing market was overheating, with a rise in real housing prices of 108% between 1997 and 2009.
The final myth is about discounts. Yes, you can say that discounted money is dead money to the taxpayer, but that criticism has to be misplaced. If one looks at the cost of, for instance, significant maintenance by local authorities and the payment of housing benefit then those alleged costs are significantly lower than claimed by those who oppose right to buy.
As my noble friend said, by abolishing right to buy we would remove the revenue and income stream for building more social homes, and that cannot be right. We would need to have an alternative if we were going to get rid of right to buy. Although I might not wholly agree with this Government’s objectives as outlined in the Bill, the noble Baroness’s proposal does not make sense because it would mean fewer homes for people who needed them, and that cannot be good. On that basis, I oppose the amendment.
A blanket ban would remove that flexibility. It would replace local judgment with central diktat, and we believe that some transition to home ownership is aspirational and desirable. We are certainly not coming from the same place as Conservative colleagues in it being a holy grail. A healthy housing market should be able to staircase ownership for some people without the significant loss of much-needed social homes—hence some of our later amendments, which I hope will make sense as we go through. Be assured, we do not mean it to enable some local authorities to abrogate their responsibility to provide social housing of all types. We would definitely encourage more than one-for-one replacement. We want reform, not abolition, and devolution, not central diktat.