More social housing tenants could be prevented from buying their own homes under a shake-up of right to buy policy.
Under the proposals, renters could have to wait more than ten years to buy their homes and those living in newly built social housing may never be able to buy.
The government also wants to return discounts for social tenants to pre-2012 levels and discourage them from selling the homes they have bought.
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said the changes will address the loss of social housing, but the charity Shelter said they “must be combined with serious investment in social housing” .
Since the introduction of the Right to Buy policy in 1980, there has been a net loss of social housing stock almost every year as successive governments have failed to replace homes purchased or demolished.
There are 1.4 million fewer English households living in social housing than in 1980, according to Shelter analysis.
“Too much public housing was sold before it could be replaced, directly contributing to the worst housing crisis in living memory,” Rayner said.
“We can’t solve the crisis without solving this problem – it’s like trying to fill a bath when the plug isn’t plugged in.”
The Department of Housing has proposed increasing the minimum length of time tenants must live in their social housing before purchasing it from the current three years.
This duration was reduced to three years from five years in 2014, but the government is seeking opinions on whether it should be increased to five years, 10 years or more than 10 years.
It also plans to ban tenants from buying newly built social housing.
Currently tenants can buy a home older than three years, but he proposed increasing the length of time newly built social housing is protected from purchase to between 10 and 30 years or “permanently”.
He also wants to reduce the maximum discounts given to tenants using Right to Buy to between £16,000 and £38,000 according to the council, bringing them back to pre-2012 levels.
Under current rules, tenants must repay this discount to the council if they then sell the property within five years of purchase. The government wants to extend this duration to 10 years.
The moves come after the Government announced further changes to the Right to Buy in the Budget, including allowing local councils to spend any money they receive from a Right to Buy sale on purchase or construction of new social housing rather than just half.
Shelter chief executive Polly Neate said right to buy reforms were “vital… but not sufficient on their own”, adding that the changes “must be combined with serious investment in social housing when of the spring spending review”.
Rayner has made social housing her mission in government, having told the BBC she wanted to see “the biggest wave of social housing in a generation and that's what I want to be measured by”.
Some have urged the Government to be more radical on Help to Buy, with Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham calling for it to be “suspended”, while others called for it to be scrapped altogether.
