Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville on 2015-10-27.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect on the cost of housing benefit to the public purse of requiring local authorities to sell their housing stock.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

Everyone needs to live within their means. People on benefits should have to make the same decisions and choices about where they can afford to live as people who are not on benefits, and should not expect to be housed in properties that most working households are unable to afford.

The Housing and Planning Bill will require local authorities to make a payment to Government based on the estimated value of their high value housing that is expected to become vacant.

This policy is about councils making best use of their housing stock – selling vacant high value housing to fund the building of new homes which reflect housing need and increase overall housing supply, and to increase home ownership, as set out in the Government’s manifesto.

At the heart of this legislation is the building of more homes. A portion of receipts generated from sales of vacant high value local authority housing will be used to build homes that better meet housing need and increase overall housing supply. In addition to this, housing associations will retain the sales receipt from each home sold through Right to Buy to enable them to re-invest in the delivery of new homes.