Labour Should Support A Right To Buy For All Tenants

Yesterday, at Prime Minister's Questions, Cameron continued his failure to answer any question put to him that characterised his performance over the last five years. He doesn't seem to have got the hang of the process yet, whereby he is asked questions and is supposed to answer them. Instead, he seems to think the idea is for him to use the time for a bad stand up comedy routine, and for him to ask questions of the leader of the opposition. In that vein, in response to questions from Harriet Harman, Cameron responded by asking whether Labour would support the Tories proposal for tenants right to buy their Housing Association property. Harman was left unable to answer.

But, in fact, there is a simple answer for Labour to give. It is that in line with our commitment to meet the aspirations of workers and tenants, we are in favour of the right to buy for ALL tenants, whether they live in council houses, housing association houses, or privately rented properties. On that basis, Harman could have asked Cameron if the Tories share Labour's commitment to meet the aspirations of hard-working people, and on that basis would commit themselves to also forcing private landlords to sell their property to their tenants with the same 70% discount that council and housing association tenants receive?

After all, this is not any kind of radical proposal. The Tories are proposing to force private owners of property, in the shape of the Housing Associations to sell property, so why not private landlords, who account for a much larger number of properties? Nor is the proposal some loony left-wing idea. Investment magazine “Moneyweek” also raised the proposal recently.

Moneyweek editor Merryn Somerset Webb says,

“When I wrote about this before the election, I pointed out that if it makes sense to force the housing associations (who are private, not state landlords) to sell at a discount, why does it not make sense to force all private landlords sell up on the cheap?

'If I was a buy-to-let investor letting to anyone getting Housing Benefit, I might start worrying about how long it is until I am forced to rent to them at a discount to the market price,' I wrote at the time.”

And they point out that the discussion on this has already begun in other financial journals. They point out that a letter to the FT from a Mr Peter Cave puts the case:

“If property ownership merits such high priority,” he says, “why does the government not grant a right to buy against all those who have ‘bought to let?'”

The private tenants of buy-to-let investors have “little security of tenure, little control over rent increases and have no share of the property value. If we must think in terms of property ownership then if anyone deserves the right to buy at a discount it is those tenants – or at the very least they deserve the right to share in the property’s increase in value. What is sauce for the tenant goose should also be sauce for the private tenant gander.”

So, will Cameron and the Tories support the aspirations of hard working people, and include the right to buy their homes for private tenants too, and if not, why not?

The argument against the right to buy, has always been that it reduces the stock of social housing. But, Labour long ago abandoned that principle in relation to council houses. Given that the Tories themselves have now abandoned the principle of the sanctity of private property, by proposing the forced sale of Housing Association properties, it would seem silly for Labour to limit itself on that basis. Moreover, the answer to a lack of social housing is not and never has been to frustrate the aspirations of workers who want to own their own homes. The answer to a lack of social housing is not to prevent workers from buying those properties, but to build more social housing!

Having abandoned the principle of the sanctity of private property, the Tories have opened the door for a future Labour Government to more easily resolve that problem, because now the field is open for Labour to carry through similar compulsory purchases of large swathes of land owned by the large landowners, and to use it for a massive expansion of housing provision. It is ridiculous that Britain, which can buy food from Europe far more efficiently than it can produce it itself, squeezes its population on to just 10% of the available land mass, with the other 90% of it nearly all in the hands of a tiny number of huge landowners, like Prince Charles and the Duke of Westminster. Actual residential property is squeezed on to an even smaller percentage of land than that, around 1.5%, with the remainder of urban land being made up of industrial and commercial development, and roads.

Councils could be given powers to compulsory purchase land in their area, at agricultural land prices, less the kind of 70% discount that tenants are being offered. They could then re-designate this land as development land, using what they required for their own purposes, and selling the remainder off at the much higher building land prices to commercial builders, thereby providing local councils with large amounts of finance to provide the services local communities require. 

But, as I wrote recently its not just a right to buy their properties that Labour should pursue along with workers. Labour should raise the demand for a Worker's Right To Buy their companies, at the same kind of 70% discount to the current asset values, that are being offered to tenants. What better way could their be to support the aspirations of hard working people than to support their desire to own their own businesses, and thereby to secure their own financial position?