Right to Buy
Debate between Sadiq Khan and Brandon LewisUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Brandon Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend. He makes a good point. The housing associations have played a hugely important part through the way they have come forward with this deal and have recognised the mandate the Government got in the general election to deliver this. They have done an excellent job in this regard. This is about extending the right to buy and therefore the rural exemptions extend as well. Indeed my hon. Friend can see the deal on the National Housing Federation website and there are some examples there of the very point he has outlined.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
As the Minister will be aware, there is a housing crisis in London. The cost of rent goes up each year and there are fewer and fewer homeowners in London. London does badly out of this scheme, which will be funded, as he is aware, by selling off family-sized social homes in London. In those circumstances, can he guarantee that the money raised from the right to buy sell-off in London will be ring-fenced to build genuinely affordable homes in London?
Brandon Lewis
The “extra home built for every home sold” applies to London. London will see more homes built as a result of this and, even under the reinvigorated scheme from 2012 onwards, in the first year some 536 homes were sold in London and 1,139 were built in the period, much more than one extra built for every one sold.