Right to buy could be scrapped, housing minister Lord Rooker hinted at the Labour Party's rural conference last week
The move would be a bid to halt the decline of available affordable housing.

Although no firm announcement was made, Rooker told delegates at the Shropshire conference that tenants who bought council properties under right to buy and then rented them out at market rates were contributing to the housing shortage. He highlighted cases of property developers leafleting council tenants, telling them to buy their homes to sell to the developer at a profit, and said right to buy had seen "too many abuses". He told delegates: "Councils are losing a valuable resource down the plughole." Currently, 2.7 million homes remain under local authority control but 1.5 million have been lost under 20 years of right to buy.

He admitted the issue was "sensitive" and said tenants who had already bought their council homes under right to buy would not be affected by any changes.

Shadow housing minister Eric Pickles said: "This flies in the face of the firm undertaking given at the last general election by the Labour Party that they would not end the right to buy."

Source

Housing Today