Right-to-buy campaigners plan to punish Labour at polls

A new pressure group is pushing for council tenants in marginal Labour seats to vote against the government in the general election over its reforms to the right to buy.

The group, Right to Buy Watch, is also working to convince George Galloway to oppose the reforms when he stands against Labour MP Oona King, who is in favour of the changes.

Galloway, the former Labour MP who now represents Glasgow Kelvin as a member of the Respect coalition, will stand in King’s Bethnal Green & Bow constituency in the election.

Galloway and King were not available for comment.

Right to Buy Watch claims to have 15,000 signatures, largely from London tenants, on its petition opposing the reforms. It is targeting the petition at marginal Labour seats including Wimbledon, Hammersmith & Fulham, Battersea and Bexleyheath & Crayford.

The reforms included slashing the right-to-buy discount from £38,000 to £16,000 in 41 property hotspots and forcing tenants to give a proportion of resale proceeds back to the council if the home is sold again within five years rather than the present three.

The discount was changed in 2003 and the resale rules were changed in January of this year as part of the Housing Act.

A second group of tenants is also campaigning against the reforms, and plans to launch a judicial review of the policy. It said that tenants were not properly informed that the discount would be reduced.

A spokesman for the second group said: “We will be relying on evidence to prove that the government and most local authorities conspired not to inform the tenants that they were about to lose £22,000 of their right-to-buy discount and therefore, in many cases, will not be able to afford to exercise the right to buy, further failing to take account of the Human Rights Act 1998.”

The group believe the government’s actions contravene the section of the Human Rights Act that protects peaceful enjoyment of possessions.

The reforms were introduced to stem the loss of social rented housing caused by tenants buying their homes and to stop abuses of the process by property firms. They have been popular with local authorities and housing campaign groups.

However, in the past, a leading housing academic said the reduction of the discount would not make any long-term difference to the stock of social housing.

Professor Steve Wilcox of York University said reforms such as lengthening the period of residency needed to qualify for right to buy would curb abuses, but capping the discount would serve little purpose (HT 23 January 2003, page 9).