Issue - meetings

To consider the following Motion in the names of Councillors J Lawson and Davies;

“This Council notes:

1)    The Conservative Government, under Margaret Thatcher, introduced the Right to Buy scheme in the United Kingdom. The Right to Buy scheme allows eligible council tenants and tenants in housing associations to purchase their council property, often at a discounted rate;

2)    When the Right to Buy scheme was introduced in England and Wales in 1980, it was designed to help ‘generation rent’ to get on the property ladder and was seen by some as a means to encourage homeownership and social mobility. Since 1980, more than two million homes have been sold under the scheme;

3)    Government figures released in February 2024, which show that 22,023 social homes were either sold or demolished in England in 2023, while 9,561 social homes were built, a net loss of 12,462 homes. In the past 10 years, there has been a total loss of 177,487 social homes, while over 1.28 million households in England are currently on council waiting lists for social housing. This is at a time when local authorities in England spent a record £2.29 billion a year in providing emergency temporary accommodation for homeless households between April 2023 and March 2024, a 29% increase from the previous year. In any one year in Kirklees, there are between 19,000 and 20,000 people waiting for a council property, but only around 1,700 to 1,800 homes become available in any given year;

4)    According to the think-tank, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), over 40% of council houses and flats sold under the Right to Buy scheme across the country are now owned by private landlords. In the last 10 years alone, over 109,000 former council homes have started being let privately.

This Council believes that:

1)    Although the Right to Buy scheme has increased home ownership and has made home ownership more accessible to some, the failure to replacehomes sold through the scheme has hindered its success. Although there was a commitment to the building of replacement social homes for each one sold when the scheme was set up, less than 5% of homes sold off through the Right to Buy scheme have been replaced since the policy was introduced;
 

2)    Increasingly, it is evident that the Right to Buy scheme has failed. It has largely exacerbated rather than alleviated the housing crisis in the UK. While thousands of homes are sold through Right to Buy each year, the number of replacement homes falls drastically short, resulting in a net loss of social homes. This is at a time when the private sector isn’t building enough affordable homes and local authorities are unable to do so. While local authorities, including Kirklees Council, endeavour to respond to escalating demand for housing, vulnerable households find themselves locked out of safe and secure social housing;

3)    The Right to Buy scheme effectively forces many households into private renting, when the properties were built originally with the  ...  view the full agenda text for item 23:

Item not considered (Meeting terminated in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 16:2).