Councillors call for end of Right to Buy scheme

Angela Rayner has said a review of the Right to Buy scheme is being carried out

Councillors in Sheffield have called on the government to scrap the Right to Buy housing scheme.

Since the policy was introduced in 1980 thousands of council houses across the city have been sold to tenants at discounted prices.

Shaffaq Mohammed, leader of the city's Liberal Democrat group, said the ongoing sales had caused "problems" for the authority, with his sentiments echoed by Green Party councillor Martin Phipps.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has previously said she wanted the scheme to continue but that it needed to be "fairer" to the taxpayer.

Shaffaq Mohammed said the council should speak to the government about axing the Right to Buy scheme

Under the Right to Buy Scheme council tenants have been able to buy their homes at a discount, which now stands at a maximum of 70% - depending on the length of the tenancy - or £80,900 across England and £108,000 in London boroughs (whichever is lower).

Speaking at a meeting of the council’s finance and performance policy committee, Mohammed said: “Now we’ve got a new government we might, as this council, make our position clear where we stand on right to buy, in terms of being able to end it if we want to.”

He went on to tell the BBC: "We need to help people get on the housing ladder in different ways.

"If people can buy council homes at a huge discount it leaves problems for the council which is paying much more than final market value to build the homes in the first place," he said.

Fellow councillor Phipps said at the same meeting: "I totally agree – let’s get rid of the right to buy.”

Mohammed's comments came as the authority agreed to spend £40.2m on 160 new properties at Newstead, Bolehill View and Corker Bottoms to add to its housing stock.

Devolved governments in Scotland and Wales have already put an end to right to buy in their countries.

Rayner told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme a consultation would review the rules after she said the previous Tory government had allowed "huge discounts" to be made quicker.

She said it was "fair" that someone should be allowed to buy the home they have lived in for a long time but that this "has to be levelled against replacing that stock."

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