Right To Buy Votes

Concurring with Peter Hitchens, Dominic Lawson and, as he writes, Fraser Nelson, John Prescott writes:

Now I know why the ­Tories’ logo is a tree. It’s a money tree.

They’re so desperate to win the election, they’re throwing around cash like a drunken sailor.

The NHS? Have £8billion a year. Fancy a tax cut? Take £10billion a year. Extend childcare? Take £1.2billion – and keep the change, old boy!

They’ll spend £25billion a year more while still pledging to make £30billion of cuts.

The worst of these uncosted commitments is their most reckless promise yet – spending £4.5billion a year to extend Right to Buy to people in housing association homes.

I remember when Thatcher ­introduced it in 1980. It caused more harm to Britain’s social housing market than the Luftwaffe ever did.

I’m not against people owning their council homes. But you must build another one for every house sold and the public shouldn’t foot the bill.

Under the Tories, though, one and a half million council homes were sold off with a huge 50 per cent discount.

While it might have helped tenants get on the property ladder, the effects were devastating.

The councils forced to sell them were stopped by the Tories from using the money from the sales to build new homes.

Instead they had to keep the money locked away to pay down the ­government’s debts.

It took two million council homes out of supply for ever. No wonder homelessness trebled between 1980 and 1990.

In London, more than one in three ended up in the hands of private landlords who then charged hard-up tenants inflated rents.

So the Tories spent billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to flog homes off on the cheap then billions more in increased housing benefit.

When I was in charge of housing, the first thing I did was slash the discount on Right to Buy, which vastly reduced the number of council houses being sold off.

We also increased shared ownership and pioneered homes on brownfield sites that cost just £60,000 to build.

But when Thatcher’s children got in, one of their first acts was to bring back the Right to Buy discount. For every 100 council houses sold, only eight new ones have been built.

Now, with five million people on the council housing waiting list, they want to extend it to housing ­association homes.

Many more flats and houses will end up in the hands of private landlords and housing association finances will be in crisis.

The Tory-leaning journalist Fraser Nelson gives an eye-opening example.

Two men work in a factory. One rents privately, the other from a housing association.

The private renter, who can’t afford to raise a deposit to buy a home, ends up subsidising his ­workmate by up to £102,700 to get on the property ladder.

Extending Right to Buy is not just deeply unfair, it’s economic madness too.

The £4.5billion a year earmarked would only help up to 58,000 households at best.

And the National Housing Federation has said it could cost up to £5.8billion to compensate the housing associations forced to sell up on the cheap.

On top of that, it could increase housing benefit payments by £4billion.

For £5.8billion we could use publicly owned brownfield sites to build 60,000 council houses a year and increase supply, not decrease it.

Right to Buy isn’t about getting people on the property ladder.

It’s about getting their votes at the expense of others.

This is a Right to Buy votes – another Tory con trick where we all get done.