Johnson planning to bring back right to buy

Return of Thatcher-style scheme would enable tenants to purchase their housing association homes

BORIS JOHNSON wants to give millions of people the right to buy the homes they rent from housing associations in a major shake-up inspired by Margaret Thatcher.

The Prime Minister ordered officials to develop the plans in the past fortnight after becoming convinced the idea would help “generation rent”, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

The proposal is intended to give the 2.5million households in England who rent properties from housing associations the power to purchase their homes at a discounted price.

It would be a new version of the Thatcher scheme that allowed families to buy properties from councils – one of the most well-known policies of her premiership.

A connected idea being pursued by officials is for the tens of billions of pounds paid by the Government in housing benefit to be used to help recipients secure mortgages.

“The Prime Minister has got very excited about this. It could be hugely significant,” said a government source familiar with the discussions.

“In many ways it is a direct replica of the great Maggie idea of ‘buy your own council flat’. It is ‘buy your own housing association flat’.”

Details of the policy have emerged ahead of what could be bruising local elections for the Conservatives on Thursday. Tory officials are briefing that they are expecting overall losses in council seats as the cost-of-living crisis bites, after a week of headlines about sexism and misogyny in Parliament, and amid the ongoing fallout from the partygate scandal.

Rebel Tory MPS have said their calculation about when and how hard to push for Mr Johnson’s removal depends in part on how the Tories fare in the vote.

Labour and Liberal Democrats yesterday denied that they had formed an electoral pact, as Tory analysis suggested each party was standing fewer candidates than normal in the other’s target areas. Downing Street believes the new version of right to buy would help scores of poorer households in traditional Labour Red Wall seats in the Midlands and North East.

If successful, the plans could also drive up property ownership in the country.

Owning a property is one of the surest indications that someone will vote Conservative according to historical electoral analysis.

The Government’s plans for housing reform were left in tatters late last year after a proposed overhaul of planning rules to increase building was ditched following a backlash from Tory MPS.

But in recent weeks Mr Johnson has commissioned his policy unit to pursue one aspect of his broader housing drive: helping more people become property owners.

Right to buy, brought in by Thatcher in 1980, gave council tenants the ability to purchase their council home at a discount, and remains in place to this day.

Mr Johnson wants to adopt a similar approach nationwide to housing associations, which are often independent of government.

Some 2.5million households – or around five million people – live in accommodation rented from housing associations in England.

The proposal is not entirely new – it was included in the 2015 Tory election manifesto. Greg Clarke negotiated a deal with housing associations when he was communities and local government secretary.

But momentum behind the drive faded after Theresa May replaced David Cameron as prime minister following the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The scheme would be similar to council right to buy, where tenants can get a discount of up to 70 per cent of the market price, depending on how long they have lived in the property.

A pilot of the scheme was launched in the Midlands in 2018. The Tories’ 2019 election manifesto vowed to consider new pilots, but none has been announced.

Critics have questioned whether there would be uptake, given prices could still be too high for the poorest tenants, and noted it would not solve the housing shortage.

Mid-term unpopularity is hardly a new experience for governments. Whether Conservative or Labour, they have been hammered at council elections down the years for the simple reason that voters are not choosing a new administration to run the country.

Ostensibly, they are supposed to be selecting candidates to deliver local services and most do, but it is pointless pretending that national politics do not have an influence on the outcome.

For months, as Boris Johnson’s premiership has been rocked by a succession of scandals and misjudgements, this Thursday’s local polls have been presented as a watershed moment.

The Tories are expected to take a severe drubbing, not because their local authorities perform worse than Labour’s or the Lib Dems’, but because of the shenanigans in Downing Street and a general sense of disappointment with the Government. Polling carried out by Lord Ashcroft, a former Tory party deputy chairman, confirms that Labour is ahead on most measurements, not just issues like the NHS and public services, but crime and immigration. Voters say they are more inclined to trust Labour on the economy, which shows the damage inflicted on the Tories by tax rises.

The extent to which these concerns feed into a general election is debatable, however. When it comes to choosing a government, voters who are angry at having so much of their hard-earned cash taken by the state will calculate that Labour would take even more. No Labour government has ever left the economy in as good a condition as it found it. In the end, when it comes to deciding who runs the country what matters won’t be Covid parties but, as Bill Clinton said, “the economy, stupid”.

The Conservative party is the world’s most successful political movement because, by and large, it has stood on a pragmatic platform based on competence, security, individual liberty and prosperity through growth.

The people questioning whether these remain the watchwords of the Government are not just the voters but Tory MPS, which is the electorate Mr Johnson has to worry about at the moment. There are rumours that his detractors will strike after the local polls but, in the absence of a clear successor, they are unlikely to do more than wound.

If Thursday’s results are as bad as expected, the best response the Prime Minster can give is a satisfactory answer to the key question: “What is the Tory party for?”