No right to buy?

The public's right to buy council housing is wasting billions of pounds and adding to the problems of homelessness, according to campaign group Shelter.

In a report published on Monday, "Time for a change - Reforming the right-to-buy", the organisation argued that discounts given to tenants purchasing their council properties have cost taxpayers almost £4.5 billion over the last five years.

Shelter says it is now time for the government to withdraw the discounts available in areas of "severe housing shortage" such as London and the South East.

Building new affordable housing to replace social lettings purchased under the right-to-buy will cost over £1 billion in a five year period from 2001/02, said the campaign group.

"The right-to-buy as it currently stands is a catastrophic waste of taxpayer's money," said Ben Jackson, Shelter's director of external affairs.

"With one hand the government is giving away billions of pounds along with the nation's stock of affordable housing. With the other it is having to spend billions on building new affordable homes to replace those sold under the scheme.

"The right-to-buy is exacerbating a chronic shortage of affordable homes in many parts of the country."

"The priority must be to stem the loss of valuable housing, particularly in London and the South East where the shortages are most severe and thousands of families are experiencing the misery of homelessness," he added.

Shelter is stepping into the debate amid suggestions that the government might be prepared to scrap the policy - seen as one of the key symbols of Margaret Thatcher's rule during the 1980s.

Housing minister Lord Rooker told Labour's first rural conference - held in July this year - that the scheme was open to "too many abuses" but added that no final decision had been made.

Since the introduction of the policy in 1980 nearly 1.5 million homes have been sold, coinciding with a 20 per cent reduction in the social housing stock.

The number of sales under the policy is currently three times higher than the rate at which new affordable housing is being built, notes Shelter.