The right to buy

Back in 1981, I was allocated a council flat in Wandsworth. At the time there was an oversupply of social homes in the capital, unwanted and empty. Homes that were impossible to let through the normal channels for one reason or another were advertised periodically. Our’s was on the 14th floor. With a couple of friends, we queued for a few hours and were rewarded with the keys to our own 3 bed flat. The spacious (Parker Morris standard) flat had a large sitting room, a nice kitchen, decent bathroom and second WC (both with black toilet seats), plus a huge storage cupboard we converted to a dark room. The rent included heating and hot water. With fabulous views close to Clapham Junction station, it was extremely convenient.

I was carried over the threshold when I married and I brought my first baby back to the flat (the third friend had moved on by then). A few years later, we exercised our right to buy.

At the time, it was a no brainer. The official value of the flat was low, and then generously discounted (60 per cent off). With a relatively high rent, the cost of buying was cheaper! We loved the flat and enjoyed living there, eventually selling at a significant profit and moving to a house in Clapham.

The rights and wrongs of Right to Buy are complicated; especially as I both benefited personally, and saw the consequences professionally.

Certainly, when I got a chance to become a home owner with significant assistance from the state I jumped at it. The offer was so compelling that any tenant who could raise a mortgage or get help from family and friends was compelled to take the offer seriously. In addition, I have always felt that home ownership is a good thing as it gives people security and choice and I want all sections of society to have access to it.

Today we have over 1m families and individuals waiting for a home, and others struggling, uncounted, in the private sector, sharing or still living with their parents. So knowing that over 2m social homes have been sold off at staggering discounts, it is not hard to conclude that Right to Buy was one of the most disastrous policies to have ever been invented. On its own, Right to Buy explains why we have a housing and homeless crisis.

Since the second world war, massive amounts of public money and land was put into building social housing, creating a huge stock of good quality affordable homes for people who needed them or who preferred to rent. As time went by, the loans were paid off creating a new income stream for Councils, not just to maintain and manage the homes but to support investment in additional new homes. Social housing could have been an amazing, self-generating social resource. But we blew it.

Look at these Local Authority figures, below. Right to Buy came in in 1980 and after that it has been downhill all the way with Housing Associations and councils barely making a dent in replacing the housing stock.

Permanent new build dwellings completed, by tenure, England, 1946 to 2015

That lovely pink mountain – the investment we, the people, made to provide a bedrock of social rented homes – was aggressively undermined, never to be replaced. Previous public investment was squandered by giving huge discounts to 2m already-housed families, causing the homelessness and poverty we see today.

Finally I have been trying to think of an upbeat conclusion and sadly there isn’t one. Replacing 2m homes will take a generation or more. In the meantime however there is a very good case for investing in, and valuing, the ones we still own.