Lord Fuller (Con)

My Lords, until May, I was the leader of a council for 17 years. Under my leadership, every single home lost to right to buy was replaced, and then some. We delivered 1% of the entire national affordable housing stock each year through the 2010s. That needs an authority that is organised and ambitious, and a clear idea of what the state is for. Did we sit there moaning about right to buy? No, we did not; we just got on with it. We struck hard bargains with landowners and developers. We recycled capital receipts. We built new homes for rent, of different tenures and different types, in both towns and villages, but mainly for social rent. That income kept council tax down for everyone. It can be done. Throughout the 2010s, it helped that there was a 25% new homes bonus kicker for the delivery of new homes under social rent. It certainly helped when the last Government changed the rules so that we got to keep all the money to reinvest in new homes rather than see it go to the Treasury, particularly for temporary and short-term accommodation, where the need has become suddenly greater following Covid. I can tolerate restrictions on right to buy on brand new homes, but I cannot abide those who stand in the way of a family cherishing an older property that could be brought into their ownership, the money for which would allow a new, much more modern and cheaper to run home to be built. For too long, blaming right to buy has been an excuse for inaction on house- building by councils. It has been a case of blaming the Government rather than rolling up your sleeves. I am disappointed that the Government are diluting the incentive for families to take the plunge to seek more security and a stake in society. I particularly regret that the statutory instruments committee had to drag the full extent of these regressive proposals out of the Government, who either had not shown or did not want to show how many families would be disadvantaged by this proposal. This is a moment to realise that right to buy has been one of this country’s most transformative policies and has done more to drive social mobility and give families a stake in society. That is something everyone in public life should aspire to promote, but perhaps that is asking too much from a Government who are putting limits on aspiration in so many walks of life, not driving it forward.