Coalition fails to deliver on right-to-buy pledge to build affordable homes

Only one new affordable home has been built for more than every five sold in the social housing sector under the government’s revitalised right-to-buy scheme.

Official figures make a mockery of the government’s pledge, launched to great fanfare in 2011, that it would replace every property sold under the scheme with a new one.

The right to buy was a flagship policy introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government, credited with boosting Tory support among aspirational working-class voters. Now the party is considering making an expansion of right to buy a manifesto pledge. However, housing experts have questioned the move, given the performance of the current scheme.

In 2011 the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) claimed: “A revitalised right to buy will unleash a new generation of home ownership and ensure every home sold is replaced.”

The then housing minister, Grant Shapps, said the government was determined to maintain the number of affordable homes for rent. “For the first time, every additional home that is sold will be replaced by a new affordable home on a one-for-one basis,” he promised. “The new homes for affordable rent will help get the nation building again, and help councils meet housing need.”

Between 2012, when the scheme was introduced, and the last quarter of 2014 an additional 16,596 homes were sold, according to official DCLG figures unearthed by housing charity Shelter. Over the same period work started on the construction of just 3,141 social housing properties. This works out at a ratio of one affordable home built for every 5.28 homes sold under the right to buy.

“The number of social rented homes being built has plummeted over recent years, so the fact that right to buy has failed to deliver the like-for-like replacement that was promised is yet another massive blow for those on ordinary incomes who need somewhere affordable to live,” said Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter.

“With millions of families struggling to meet sky-high rents in the private rented sector, the next government’s priority has to be building more affordable homes, not selling off the few we have left.” The social homes that had been built were being let at 80% of market rents, making them unaffordable to many, Shelter said.

The Tories are considering making a manifesto pledge to allow tenants in properties owned by housing associations to buy their properties. But as the average age of a right-to-buy purchaser is between 45 and 64, the move will do little to help the younger generation, who are most affected by the UK’s acute housing shortage.

The present housing minister, Brandon Lewis, defended the government’s record: “Council house building starts are now at a 23-year high, with work started on more new council homes in the previous year than the entire 13 years of the last administration. There is a time lag between the sale, planning and building the new house, but there is a very strong incentive for councils to get moving as the receipts are returned to central government if they are not spent within three years. We are working with slowcoach councils to get them to speed up.”

Concerns about a lack of social housing come as tenants, trade unionists and housing charities prepare to march on London’s City Hall this week. They are calling on the mayor, Boris Johnson, to build more council homes and control private rents. The March For Homes aims to highlight the lack of affordable homes in the capital at a time when developers are selling multi-million-pound luxury developments to foreign investors. Campaigners say more than 344,000 people in the capital are on waiting lists for social housing.