Rayner triggers record year for Right to Buy
Right to Buy applications are projected to reach a two-decade high ahead of Labour's dramatic overhaul of the scheme, analysis suggests.
The number of council tenants using Right to Buy will rocket by 162pc, with 18,500 homes changing hands in 2025-26, according to local authority predictions.
But experts warned the surge would effectively undermine Angela Rayner's home building ambitions. She previously pledged to build 18,000 new social homes by 2029.
Right to Buy, a flagship policy of Margaret Thatcher, allows tenants who have lived in a council property for three years or more to purchase it from their local authority at a discounted rate.
The requirement will rise to 10 years under reforms led by Ms Rayner, the Housing Secretary, who benefited from the Right to Buy scheme herself.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, also cut the maximum discount available from £136,000 to £16,000 in most London boroughs and from £102,000 to £38,000 outside the capital. The decision was announced in her maiden Budget in October.
Analysis by the i newspaper found councils in some areas had seen applications for the scheme double following the announcement.
Overall, councils predicted 18,500 homes would be sold off in the next year. It amounts to the highest number of Right to Buy homes being sold in a single year than any other time in the last two decades.
Dr Samuel Hughes, of the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, warned that the Government's reforms would make it 'unaffordable for any but the richest tenants to take advantage of the scheme'.
He said: 'It is not surprising that many are racing to buy their homes now, before they are taken out of reach.'
The Local Government Association, which represents councils in England and Wales, warned that the spike in Right to Buy applications 'will further exacerbate the homelessness challenges that councils are working hard to address'.
The trade body maintained that the reforms were 'a step in the right direction' but urged the Government to ensure the scheme was fit for purpose.
A spokesman said: 'The Government announcement that Right to Buy discounts were to be reduced appeared to lead to a significant increase in the number of Right to Buy applications made by social housing tenants ahead of the reductions taking effect.
'Whilst there will be positive longer-term benefits of the discount levels in stemming the continued loss of stock, the short-term impact is a spike in the sale of desperately needed social homes.'
The Housing Department is spending £800m a year on its Affordable Homes Programme, and earmarked a further £2bn down payment in March's spending review.
A government spokesman said: 'Too many social homes have been sold off before they can be replaced, which has directly contributed to the worst housing crisis in living memory.
'This government has delivered on its manifesto commitment to reviewing the increased discounts introduced in 2012, and our reforms will reverse this decline and deliver a fairer scheme by supporting councils to retain the receipts to rebuild their housing stock, while retaining a route for longstanding tenants to own their own homes.'
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Reform UK chairman quits after calling question from party's newest MP ‘dumb'
The chairman of Reform UK has quit, saying working to get the party elected was no longer 'a good use of my time'. Zia Yusuf's decision follows a row in which he described a question to the Prime Minister concerning a ban on burkas from his party's newest MP as 'dumb'. Announcing his resignation on Thursday afternoon, he said: '11 months ago I became chairman of Reform. I've worked full time as a volunteer to take the party from 14 to 30%, quadrupled its membership and delivered historic electoral results. 'I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office.' Earlier, he had criticised the party's newest MP, Sarah Pochin, after she asked Sir Keir Starmer whether he would support banning the burka during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday – something that appears not to be a policy of Reform's. Asked about the question on social media, Mr Yusuf had said: 'Nothing to do with me. Had no idea about the question nor that it wasn't policy. Busy with other stuff. 'I do think it's dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn't do.' A Labour spokesperson said: 'Nigel Farage could fit all of his MPs in the back of a cab, yet he can't stop them fighting among themselves. 'Reform only guarantees more Liz Truss-style chaos. Their £80 billion of unfunded commitments would lead to economic meltdown and put up everyone's mortgage and bills. They're just not credible.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Starmer intervenes over plans for higher energy bills in the South
Sir Keir Starmer has intervened in controversial net zero proposals to make homes and businesses in the South pay more for power than those in the North, amid fears of a voter backlash. In recent days, Downing Street has taken a growing interest in plans for so-called zonal electricity pricing being considered by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary. No10 officials have contacted industry chiefs to signal that the Prime Minister is overseeing the potential policy. Downing Street is understood to have requested a further review of the costs and benefits – raising the prospect that the idea could be killed off or kicked into the long grass. Zonal pricing aims to capture efficiencies by lowering the relative cost of electricity close to wind farms and has already sparked a bitter war of words among energy bosses. It would result in Britain being divided into zones, with prices in each based on local supply and demand. There is currently one national price. Supporters claim the switch would lead to savings of £52bn for consumers overall, as well as a £27bn saving on grid upgrades that would no longer be required. Sir Keir's intervention is the latest sign of tensions within Labour over net zero. Pledges on job creation, investment in carbon capture technology, and heat pump and electric car targets have all sparked fierce policy debates across Whitehall. Mr Miliband's officials are said to be supportive of zonal pricing but the Energy Secretary himself has yet to declare a position. Whitehall sources insisted no final decisions had been made and that a range of views were still being considered. The involvement of Downing Street will be interpreted as a sign of political anxiety about the controversial policy. Nigel Farage's Reform UK has made net zero and the cost of energy a key campaign issue and pledged to fight plans to roll out renewable power projects and pylons across the countryside. Giving a speech in Scotland this week, Mr Farage likened the Government's net zero policies to 'the next Brexit'. In practice, a zonal system would mean higher wholesale power prices for London and the South compared with the North and Scotland, where most wind farms are concentrated. But supporters say it would slash bills for consumers overall, by reducing the need for costly grid upgrades and slashing the amount paid to wind farms to switch off. A report by FTI Consulting this year predicted overall savings under zonal of £52bn for consumers over 20 years. Another report by the same firm, commissioned by Octopus Energy and shared with Mr Miliband's officials, also found that £27bn less would need to be spent on major grid upgrades under the reforms, resulting in nearly 2,000 fewer miles of cables. The claims of savings are disputed by opponents, who say a major market shake-up will deter investment and imperil the Government's plans for a renewable energy construction boom this decade. Ministers have argued that the Government's strategy for a power system running almost entirely on renewables by 2030 will bring down prices and provide Britain with greater energy security. Asked to comment on the involvement of Downing Street, a spokesman for Mr Miliband's department refused to comment on 'speculation'. But Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy minister, said the Prime Minister's move to scrutinise zonal pricing more closely implied lack of faith in the Energy Secretary. He said: 'It suggests that the PM does not trust Ed Miliband to take a decision of this magnitude.' The Government has previously pledged to make a decision by the middle of this year, ahead of a renewable energy auction in the summer that will hand subsidies to major wind farm projects that are vital to Mr Miliband's clean power goals. That has prompted warnings from wind farm developers that embarking on a major shake-up of the electricity market now will create unnecessary uncertainty, leading to the cancellation of schemes or demands for higher power prices to compensate. Keith Anderson, the chief executive of Scottish Power, last month urged ministers not to 'snatch defeat from the jaws of victory' by pushing ahead with the reforms. At the same time, ministers are under intense pressure to cut energy bills for households and businesses following Mr Miliband's pre-election promise to slash them by £300 a year. Critics say the existing national pricing system also distorts the market – for example, by encouraging batteries to charge at the wrong times and inter-connectors to send power from Britain to Europe even when it is needed in the South. In recent months, the Government has sought to quell wind developer concerns about the policy by suggesting that existing schemes will benefit from 'grandfathering' – meaning they would retain current payment terms. Mr Miliband is also weighing up an alternative proposal that would seek to reform the national electricity pricing system to better reflect 'locational signals', although these have not been fleshed out. A key moment in the debate is likely to come next week, when Mr Miliband is expected to make his recommendation, for or against zonal pricing, to Downing Street. If zonal pricing is implemented it would be the biggest shake-up of the market since privatisation in the 1990s. Richard Tice, Reform UK's energy spokesman, said: 'Zonal pricing is a trick designed to try to cover up the ever-rising energy bills we face because of subsidies to renewable energy. 'Keir Starmer is now panicking over the costs of renewables and the loss of votes to Reform.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
So now it's official. The ‘graduate premium' is a myth
Have you ever thought about the main reason why school leavers keep choosing to go to university and higher education (HE) participation rates continue rising? Of course there are many reasons; a chance for young adults to get away from their parents, ease of application and acceptance, it looks more fun than going to work, an interest in the subject… But what is the main driver that underpins society's messaging and ends up channelling 18-year-olds into university rather than the workforce? Well, it's the perception that there is a 'graduate premium'; and put simply, the narrative goes like this – 'Don't worry about the debt, you're going to get paid more to make up for it'. And the HE sector well knows the importance of maintaining the societal belief in the graduate premium to drive up their customer numbers. They are relentless in their efforts, issuing constant public comments, articles and self-commissioned reports, often via sympathetic think-tanks, claiming the limitless powers of HE to deliver a graduate premium to all who enrol. But this positive advertising is starting to contrast starkly with increasing evidence, now in plain sight, of graduates' difficulties getting jobs as well as the low pay on offer of not much above minimum wage. There is a growing realisation that we are burdening too many of our young adults with morale-sapping student debt for their whole working life, with little or no corresponding improvement in their career prospects. There are also concerns that we are building up a dangerous stockpile of student loans that won't be repaid, only for the taxpayer to pick up the tab. Meanwhile, money is flowing freely into the bloated HE sector via unwitting students being used as pawns. The Government has announced a White Paper due out this summer regarding Post-16 Education. So given the importance of the notion of a graduate premium, you would assume that the Government has ensured there is robust informative data to inform policy-making. Well, sadly not. There is only one Government report, the annual Graduate Labour Market Statistics, which attempts to quantify the graduate premium; and my research shows that it is fundamentally flawed. Some will say that the IFS Graduate Lifetime Earnings report from 2020 also 'proves' a graduate premium, but my research argues that it is just as flawed. My findings are already supported by the Royal Statistical Society, and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has also found a case in my favour and agreed that there is a problem with graduate premium data. The OSR has intervened and forced the hand of the Department for Education (DfE), who admitted in their release today that their figures are misleading – and to such an extent that even though this has been a mainstay of graduate outcome reporting since 2007, they have decided to cease publication. The DfE have agreed that a report demonstrating the difference between the career pay outcomes of those with equivalent A-level results is necessary, and they intend to produce it as part of their LEO data e.g. comparing school leavers with three Cs who attended university and those that did not. But the inadequacy of the data doesn't stop there. Using mathematical modelling, I've found that since we surpassed 30 per cent HE participation as long as 20 years ago, the marginal graduates added – increasingly being drawn from school leavers with relatively lower prior academic attainment – haven't earnt any graduate premium at all on average. Yet this phenomenon isn't explored in official Government statistics. When graduates do earn a premium, there is still the age-old statistical issue that correlation does not prove causation. For the majority of graduates, the job they end up doing will have no meaningful connection to the degree subject itself. So you must question why the official Government statistics keep churning out data that implies that studying for a degree was the main causation reason for the higher earnings, whereas in fact it is more likely their pre-existing attributes such as academic ability and ambition. Furthermore, when there is a link between the degree subject and the graduate's career, did they genuinely need to study academically for three whole years at great cost to themselves beforehand? Couldn't the course have been far shorter? And to what extent could it have been cheaper and more effective for them to start work at 18 and learn from colleagues, undergoing job-based formal and informal training in order to progress? You can often learn far more in three weeks of doing the job than you can in three years of theoretical study. The existing statistics don't explore this at all and by implication see their main role as demonstrating what degree is better than another. They act on the assumption that for non-manual work, everybody should get a 3-year degree before entering the workplace, rather than whether a degree is necessary at all. Until now, these inadequate statistics have allowed the sector to hijack the official figures and mislead the public and Government regarding the benefits of higher education, claiming that 'everybody' will be able to benefit from the supposed average premium. What is needed is root and branch reform of graduate statistics. I believe it would provide compelling evidence that surpassing around 25-30 per cent HE participation was a monumental mistake, and we certainly should never have let it reach the existing 50 per cent. The vicious spiral of never-ending increasing participation is condemning ever more of our young adults to pay huge amounts for unnecessary degrees. The Government's ideologically driven policies are led by a misguided false notion of 'opportunity for all'; but in the hands of a commercially-driven sector it has become a gross exercise in mass exploitation. The only way for this to end is for the Government to introduce a sensible, pragmatic cap on student numbers, calculated based on useful data – not the misleading data currently being produced. Paul Wiltshire is a parent campaigner against Mass HE and is the author of 'Why is the average Graduate Premium falling' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
