Right to Buy Scandal
The ‘drought’ (£) in social housing replacements, according to Inside Housing— a weekly housing magazine—is caused from the way total Right to Buy receipts are distributed: the largest share goes to the Treasury, about a quarter goes to general local authority funds and debt payments, and only the remainder goes towards funding replacements. It is unclear how exactly receipts will be distributed if Right to Buy is extended to housing associations.In its briefing note on the extension pledge, the IFS conclude that due to the uncertainties surrounding the scheme and its funding, extending Right to Buy risks depleting the social housing stock further; and even though the up-front cost of the policy may be covered by selling expensive local authority stock, selling public assets to fund a giveaway policy could harm the state of the UK public finances in the long-run.
