Right to buy to be extended for Housing Association homes
Under a new plan housing benefits allowance can be used to purchase homes
Right to buy will be extended for housing association homes under a new government plan.
Those on lower incomes will be able to use housing benefits to buy their homes under plans set out by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The Prime Minister announced a "benefits to bricks" scheme and pledged a change in the rules so housing benefits can be spent in securing a first mortgage and going towards payments.
The PM said around ÂŁ30 billion is spent yearly on housing support which is being "swallowed" to pay mortgages of landlords and housing associations.
Housing Secretary Michael Gove said the Government would ensure a "like-for-like, one-for-one replacement" for any social housing sold to tenants under the scheme - addressing one of the criticisms of Margaret Thatcher's flagship right-to-buy policy which led to a sell-off of council homes.
Speaking in Lancashire, Mr Johnson committed to "reforms to help people cut costs in every area of household expenditure" over the coming weeks.
Reckless plan
The plan has been criticised by the housing charity Shelter.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said the right-to-buy plans were "baffling, unworkable, and a dangerous gimmick".
"Hatching reckless plans to extend right-to-buy will put our rapidly shrinking supply of social homes at even greater risk," she said.
"If these plans progress we will remain stuck in the same destructive cycle of selling off and knocking down thousands more social homes than get built each year."
The Prime Minister pledged a "one-for-one" replacement of each property sold to prevent the housing stock dwindling in an attempt to address the major criticism of Margaret Thatcher policy.
Mr Johnson pledged he and his ministers would "finish the right-to-own reforms Margaret Thatcher began in the 1980s" by extending the scheme to the 2.5 million people in housing association homes.
Proposals for renters to be able to buy their social homes at a discount are not new, and appeared in David Cameron's 2015 Conservative manifesto.
After that pledge failed to materialise, Mr Johnson committed to consider new pilots for the scheme ahead of the 2019 general election.