Select Committee on Communities and Local Government

Brandon Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

We had witnesses from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so we did look across the board. We did not look specifically at extending the qualifying period for the right to buy, but we did look in some detail at supported housing. We thought that the discount should not be eligible in relation to the right to buy. The problem is that in some cases where a property cannot be sold, a portable discount can be given to another property, but if a person needs supported housing, then saying to them, “You can’t buy that house but you can have a portable discount to another supported housing unit somewhere else” does not really add up. We need clarification on that because we were very concerned about the prospect of losing supported housing in this way.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

First, I apologise to the Chairman and members of the Select Committee for not being here earlier; I have been serving on a Bill Committee. I hope they will appreciate that I whizzed down as soon as we finished the sitting.

I thank the Chairman and the entire team who worked on this report, and everybody who gave evidence, for their time and effort. It is a deep report that we will look at with interest. I am sure that members of the Committee and the Chairman himself will appreciate that there may be things that we do not entirely agree with; we have that debate from time to time. Through the voluntary agreement, our policies in the Housing and Planning Bill and our housing policies in general, we have been very clear that we support, and will continue to do all we can to support, the aspiration of home ownership, and the right to buy plays an important part in that. I welcome the time and effort that the Committee put into the report, and look forward to the debates on these issues in the period ahead.

[Mr Betts]

I would probably be disappointed if the Minister did agree with everything in the report. The Committee members were absolutely at one on this. We support the aspiration of home ownership—how could we not when we are homeowners ourselves? People would look at us askance if we came to a different view. We did not say that we were against the right to buy; rather, we raised a number of fundamental questions about how it could be funded. We would like the Minister to provide in response the information, the evidence and the facts and figures to back up the Government’s policy so that we can have a better view as to how it will work in practice.