Right to Buy should be extended to private tenants, one Labour leadership contender has said while another wants local councils to compulsorily purchase sub-standard rental properties.
Left-winger Jeremy Corbyn saida private rented sector Right to Buy scheme could be funded by withdrawing the £14bn tax allowances currently given to buy-to-let landlords, using that money to finance the way that private tenants would have the right to buy their landlords’ properties at a discount.
Islington MP Corbyn said: “We know that Generation Rent faces an uphill struggle simply to get into long-term housing.
“We have seen some good ideas from Labour to establish more secure tenancies for renters. Now we need to go further and think of new ways to get more people into secure housing.”
He added that right-to-buy for private tenants could help solve the housing crisis, and that he will be launching a consultation on the policy this summer.
He said: “I believe this idea could open up the possibility of real secure housing for many currently faced with insecurity and high rents.”
Corbyn is not the first Labour MP to mention Right to Buy in the context of the private rented sector.
Earlier this month, Ealing North MP Steve Pound, in pouring sarcasm over government plans to extend Right to Buy to tenants of housing associations, said that the “inevitable logic … is to extend this to private tenants – and see what private landlords have to say”.
If Corbyn’s ideas were to succeed, private landlords would lose tax breaks afforded to other businesses and face having to sell their properties at a discount to tenants who have been in situ for three years.
Meanwhile Labour front-runner Andy Burnham wants to give local councils powers to issue compulsory purchase orders on private rented properties that do not meet a decent homes standard.
Burnham has pledged to make Labour the party of home ownership if it wins the next election.
Liz Kendall, another Labour leadership runner, has yet to set out her stall on housing. More notably, so has Yvette Cooper, the former housing minister who brought in Home Information Packs.
Comments (10)
My God! – Do these politicians actually think about what they say or just open their mouths and let c**p come out??
what a buffoon.
So out of touch
why even worry about these people and what they say, you do know they are not going to win any election anytime soon. as a party they have lost all credibility, these types of proposals are really just designed to create noise but entirely unworkable as the law of property and the rule of law means that you cannot force somebody to sell something the rightfully own if they don’t want to
It goes to show how messed up our political system is that someone with a views so barmy as this can actually get elected in to parliament.
Has he been on something??? Sell to tenants at a discounted price??? If that happened tenants could book their removals 3 years in advance as they wouldn’t be allowed to stay longer than three years or are Labour coupling this ridiculous suggestion with a minimum 4 year tenancy agreement? Seem to think there was something in their last manifesto re a 3 year minimum tenancy! IDIOTS.
Looks like Labour is proposing a three year cap on tenancies, then.
So out of touch with the property market…
How on earth to these people get the public to vote for them. Maybe its about time candidates for parliament should need to sit an exam, be licenced, have continued CPD etc just like the other people in this country.
“face having to sell their properties at a discount to tenants who have been in situ for three years.”
so no landlord will give the tenant a tenancy that last longer then 3 years and they will have to move.
Forced to sell at a discount ? Why? is that not theft?
Labour – what a bunch of loons.
VOTE COMMUNIST VOTE Jeremy Corbyn
What a load of ********. And I thought the Labour Party couldn’t get any dafter. Seems they don’t want to win the next General Election either…
(PeeBee – that word was so rude I put it in as asterisks myself, just in case the smutfilter failed me!)