Bad news for Tottenham tenants as Prescott kills off Right to Buy policy 29/10/05

John Prescott is "strangling" the highly innovative right-to-buy policy, first introduced by the Conservatives two and a half decades ago, which has so far helped two million people join the home ownership ladder.

That was the angry claim made by Justin Hinchcliffe, of Haringey Conservatives, to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1980 Housing Act - the flagship legislation which enabled council house tenants to buy their homes, a move which also enhanced the social mix of communities, and encouraged more people to take pride in the ownership of a property.

Hinchcliffe accused Labour's Deputy Prime Minister of forcing through a series of damaging changes during the last eight years, including slashing the maximum discount to just 16,000, raising minimum sale prices, and reducing eligibility for the scheme.

He said the Deputy Premier has been responsible for ensuring that maximum discounts have failed to keep pace with house price inflation, citing how in 1999 he replaced the maximum discount from 50,000 with nine regional discount limits - in some cases, as low as 22,000. Mr Prescott also increased the minimum sale price by raising the cost-floor. Then in 2003, Labour further reduced the maximum Right to Buy discount to 16,000 across Haringey. Mr Prescott's action means that while a typical discount was worth half the average value of a home in 1997, it has slipped back to one-third of the value today.

In 2004, the Prescott-driven Housing Act increased the initial qualification period for Right to Buy from three years to five years.

And while new tenants in housing associations are no longer being offered the right to buy their home, the Government's own new "Social Homebuy" scheme is voluntary, and housing associations do not have to offer it to their tenants.

Justin protested: "Just as John Prescott's hostility to choice in education is motivated by old fashioned socialism, so are his attempts to strangle the Right to Buy and deny those in social housing, especially in Tottenham and Wood Green, the chance to own their home."

He added: "The Right to Buy has been one of the most successful housing policies ever introduced, boosting home ownership, social mobility and helping create mixed communities. It is John Prescott's outdated values, not the Right to Buy, that deserve a place in the dustbin of history."

ENDS