Spotted by Random in The Independent:
The ‘Right To Buy’ policy that lets council tenants buy their homes at a big discount should be extended to the tenants of private landlords, a Labour leadership contender has said.
Jeremy Corbyn said Labour needed to go further in tackling the housing crisis and that extending Right To Buy could help more people find a secure place to live.
“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 said.
“So why not go with Right to Buy, with the same discounts as offered by way of subsidised mortgage rates [this sentence is not entirely clear], but for private tenants and funded by withdrawing the £14 billion tax allowances currently given to Buy to Let landlords? I believe this idea could open up the possibility of real secure housing for many currently faced with insecurity and high rents.”
I attended a talk by Lib Dem leadership candidate Tim Farron recently. He said he opposed Right to Buy. I pointed out that he was on the back foot with that one ("You are preventing millions from achieving the aspiration of home-ownership" etc), so why didn't he change tack and say it was a brilliant idea, so brilliant in fact that he would extend it to private tenants. I actually got a laugh and a round of applause for that.
Unsurprisingly, he did not answer the question, thank God that Corbyn has picked up the slack.
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