The Labour Party are bloody hypocrites

[prestatynprlck]

I think Angela rayner has got a nerve to start slashing the right to buy when she has profited from it, is she going to give the money back then that she pocketed from this scheme when she sold her house? I have always been a labour supporter and I am as working class as they come but I am so angry about this. I am not denying that the right to buy policy has its issues but it's just tinkering around the edges of the housing crisis and ignoring the real issues. I may be slightly emotional about this as I live in a one bedroomed council flat that I was planning on buying next year, my only hope of probably ever owning a property. Instead, if and when I choose to have children and I am overcrowded, they will now have to rehouse me themselves instead to a bigger property and I will now probably be a lifelong council tenant. Fabulous. Why are they targeting the people at the bottom? I can't support them anymore sadly.

i didn’t say that. I believe their asylum claims should be heard quickly and they should be fed and sheltered whilst waiting, yes. Because I believe in basic human rights. Stop blaming the most vulnerable for the problems the most powerful have created.

To the tune of the Red Flag:
”The working class can kiss my a**e,
I’ve got the Foreman’s job at last!”
What, exactly, did you expect when voting them in???

This is incorrect.

They can pay a one off cash incentive to a private landlord in lieu of a deposit to help persuade the LL to take on a council tenant.

They do not have any remit to, as a long term situation, pay above the local housing allowance.

They may be able to use a discretionary housing payment as an interim top up to cover the short fall, but it's extremely unlikely they would do this at the start of a tenancy. It's more for situations where a rent increase or benefit decrease has left an existing tenant in financial hardship, and it won't be permanent.

The council has to do everything in its power to reasonably house someone in borough, but it's not an absolute mandate. If they can demonstrate that they have exhausted their options, then they absolutely can, and do, house people out of borough. Especially from London as the demand is so insanely high.

I'm delighted that RTB is ending. It has decimated housing stock availability for those most in need and is partly to blame for the mad situation where councils are spending eye-watering amounts on temporary accommodation for homeless families.

My parents lived in council housing and were also very much opposed to RTB. And I'm glad they stuck to their principles, even though it meant that my brother and I lost out on an inheritance of around £350k.

You can’t keep building houses just to sell them off. Then you have to build more and more. Right to buy has killed off council housing.
and the point of it was to allow people to own homes they were settled in, not sell them to upgrade on the profit.

If you have the intelligence level to get a degree, surely you have the capacity to earn more and get out of the social housing system?

People should not be relying on right to buy or being a permanent social housing resident. Find a way to stand on your own two feet instead of taking from those who don't have that privilege.

There is a certain irony that you think its a problem for people to be under-occupying council houses eg your mum and your aunt. But often there aren't the number of smaller eg 1 bed properties to move to, so thry are stuck.
But you want to buy your 1 bed flat which takes another one away from council stock...? (That people like them could have downsized to)

I've got more good news for you if you really find yourself unable to buy a house by the time you're 50 you only have to wait til you're 60 and you can cash it in. Lots of interest earnt by then means a tidy sum as you head towards retirement.

Council Properties were being sold to tenants well before Thatcher. A dd bought an ex council where the previous owners had lived for 60 years - they had bought it in 1971 - for almost exactly 1% of what dd paid. As we found out after dh had a good old nose on the Land Reg.

Of course at the time, houses were much more affordable generally. I doubt that anyone foresaw the stratospheric rise in prices - not just in the U.K., either.

Right to buy is fine. Great idea. What is not fine is not ring-fencing the money to build new council homes. You can tell round here who rents and who owns. The renters have been insulated.

So she hadn't graduated when she applied for council housing. Social housing seemed to almost be her first choice for housing and as a method of buying.

I do get why the withdrawal of rtb is upsetting for the OP. But presumably rtb wasn't originally intended for teenagers to buy heavily discounted homes which they could then resell for a profit.

Er, people don't live in social housing because they aren't 'intelligent' enough to do otherwise.

They do it for a secure tenancy and reasonable rent.

Right to buy didn't start until 1980.

Eta: you're right, though! Tenants could buy their council house with the agreement of the LA prior to 1980. I didn't know that. But Right to Buy obviously meant LAs had to agree to sales.

Right to buy was a thing in the 1936 housing act and the subsequent 1959 House Purchase and Housing act. But the present Right to buy is what made things much easier and brought about the sale of over 2 million homes to tenants.

It's really tricky. I live in the south east where everything is so expensive and many working people don't have a hope of getting on the property ladder.

I really like the idea of people on low incomes being able to purchase their own home; I think it's ridiculous that it's so unattainable, especially coupled with how insecure and expensive the private rented sector is.

However, obviously the way RTB has worked out has been hugely detrimental to the provision of social housing, with no extra provision of social homes or affordable private rentals. In fact quite the opposite. The landscape is now that people are really struggling to manage the insecurity and huge cost of private rented, they are going onto the social housing registers, wait for housing stock that isn't there, and councils are having to pay through the nose for privately rented accommodation and temporary accommodation that was once council stock that would have been affordable and available to them.

It's a ridiculous situation from all facets.

Yes, vast amounts of public money paying HB straight into the pockets of private landlords thus paying their mortgages for them. But don't put their taxes up! That will make the sky fall in.

Not to mention the multi-millions in benefits that go straight into landlords’ pockets, rather than on increasing/maintaining existing social housing stock.

Totally agree. And the council could self build rather than buy stock. Or buy ex nhs nurse accommodation and remodel for socialhousing using grants from the government (this is what dh is looking at doing).

That is absolutely not what social housing is for! It's there to support people who cannot afford to rent or buy a home on the open market or are unable to support themselves (through disability, ill-health etc). It's a tax payer supported mechanism to support people who need it, not a life choice because the rent is cheaper! Anyone who is living in social housing but has the ability to live in open market housing is sponging off the tax payer and blocking a housing option for someone who actually needs it.

“Market value” is based on profit and unaffordable which is why social housing exists in the first place. Housing accounts have to wash their own faces, the point is that it’s self financing, hence not subsidised.

I'm pretty sure social housing initially was built as affordable housing for anyone that applied/wanted it. But as it has become much more scarce and in short supply (much of this due to losing stock to RTB - and not replacing in the same volume) there is varying criteria on who is allocated, depending on area.

Social housing is available for everyone and is assessed as such. The groups you have mentioned are prioritised over others but you do not have to be poor or disabled to apply.

There seem to be certain areas where the working classes have been led to screw themselves over. (Since the 80s maybe? When I was born so not sure!)

RTB is one of those areas. Individual working class people benefit at the expense of everyone else. Of course you can see why each individual does it, whilst still seeing it isn't fair overall.

Inheritance tax is another one. People insistent they should inherit large sums because their grand/parents "worked all their lives" for it. But it's the same people who, two or three generations ago, would have been appalled at the unfairness of wealth being handed down like that, the haves and have nots.

Was this a intentional Tory ploy to break apart working class solidarity? To become like the US where people in dire poverty believe they are just around the corner from being millionaires, rather than organising as a class?

Right to buy was a terrible policy.

@prestatynprlck Have you noticed the elevently million threads about Rayner's living arrangements?