Housing: Right-to-Buy Sales

Lord Porter of Spalding Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate also is an expert in this area—he does a lot on rural housing, and I applaud him for that—and he is right. As I say, there is an issue that needs addressing in relation to rural areas and social housing. It is a more difficult issue there. I expect the social housing Green Paper to come up with thoughts on this but meanwhile, as I say, there are particular policies on right to acquire and right to buy that alleviate the position in rural areas.

[Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)]

My Lords, the original question referring to 2010 was slightly disingenuous. Do Ministers—certainly this Minister—agree that the housing crisis has been caused over the last 30 years, not the last 10 years, and that the only way of building enough homes is by diversifying the amount of people who can get into that space? History shows that the only time this country has ever reached 300,000 homes is when councils have been allowed to take up their proper role and deliver a major part of them.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!