Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of giving social housing tenants the right to acquire rented property built prior to 1997.

The Right to Acquire (RtA) was introduced in 1997, through the Housing Act 1996. A Housing Association that accepted government grant from that point accepted that the RtA would be a condition of the grant.

Backdating the legislation to apply to homes built before 1997 would require forcing Housing Associations to sell ​properties to eligible tenants. However, Government has made home ownership available to certain Housing Association tenants through ​a voluntary agreement with Housing Associations supporting pilots of the Voluntary Right to Buy.

The Midlands pilot for the Voluntary Right to Buy was launched in August 2018. This pilot has given thousands of Housing Association tenants in the East and West Midlands the opportunity to buy their home with a discount. An independent evaluation for the Midlands Voluntary Right to Buy pilot was published in February 2021. The 2019 manifesto committed to evaluate new pilot areas.