Taunton and Wellington’s MP, Gideon Amos, has called on the government to move to tackle the housing waiting list by tightening up controls in the sell-off of council homes.
Mr Amos, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for housing and planning, challenged the Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook, in Parliament yesterday (Monday).
He asked: “What assessment has been made of the potential merits of allowing local authorities to end the right to buy in their areas?”
The Minister replied: “The Government do not intend to abolish the right to buy, either nationally or by giving local areas discretion to do so.
“We want to ensure that council tenants who have lived in and paid rent on their social homes for many years can retain the opportunity to own their home.”
Mr Amos then said: “My Somerset councillor colleagues have for decades steadfastly protected and managed our stock of council houses, which has declined through right to buy from tens of thousands a number of years ago to only 6,000 now.
“While I welcome the recent attention to this issue by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister, is it not time that communities decide for themselves whether to sell off council houses at all?”
The Minister replied: “Although I respect the honourable gentleman and his views, we have a principled difference of opinion on this matter”.
The minister went on to repeat his previous answer.
Mr Amos said afterwards that he would keep fighting for an increase in council house numbers to reverse the current decline.
“New rules ending right to buy except for very longstanding tenants are the right way to go, and we would only end right to buy completely as a last resort in local areas with very high housing stress.
“But after the Conservatives' promise to build new homes to replace those sold off never materialised, Taunton and Wellington has now lost the majority of our council houses at a time when we’ve got over 12,000 families on the housing waiting list.
“You can’t create more council houses to fill the bath when the plug’s taken out and those council houses are being sold off.”
He said that government moves on council homes were a step in the right direction “but it needs to go further if we are going to get all those people off the housing waiting list”
