Carol Hayton and David Hide were, like many Labour members surprised to hear Lisa Nandy saying she agrees with Michael Gove on Right to Buy.
We were extremely disappointed to hear Lisa Nandy state that she supported the ‘Right To Buy’ on the BBC’s ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’ programme. This disregards the successive conference policy decisions supporting an end to Right to Buy, a policy that is also supported by a wide range of commentators and organisations across the housing sector.
In Lisa Nandy’s opinion, the ‘act of vandalism’ of our council housing stock and the consequent housing crisis that has arisen from the decimation of stock levels, is attributable to the failure to replace the council house homes sold. She, therefore, agreed with Michael Gove that the solution to the crisis is to have one for one replacement of all council homes sold.
This is an appallingly weak response from the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling up, Housing and Communities. She should be aware that successive governments over recent decades have proposed one for one replacement of homes sold under the Right to Buy, it was even a manifesto commitment in the Tory’s 2015 manifesto, but this has for a variety of reasons, NEVER been achieved. That’s why we are in this mess. Since 1991 there has been an average annual loss of 24,000 council homes per annum. Last year 29,000 social homes were sold and less than 7,000 were built. This evidences an appalling lack of political will to address the massive year on year decline in stock. This needs to change.
To address the housing crisis we need to house:
the millions of people on housing waiting lists,
thousands in overcrowded or poor-quality housing,
thousands more trapped in insecure temporary accommodation or forced into the unaffordable private rented sector.
And we need to protect existing and future stock levels by ending the Right To Buy.
Agreeing with her counterpart in a Tory government that has consistently failed to take any action to deal with the housing crisis is just not good enough. Please help us to send a message to tell Lisa Nandy that we want something better than this, something that will give hope to those in need of a decent and affordable home. We need to end the Right to Buy.
Please add your name to our statement:
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 
Dear oh, dear, oh, dear. One-for-one ‘replacement is so stupid because it takes the whole meaning of housing as a human right, clear off the agenda. Mind you, Ms Nandy has changed her mind before so there is a consistency there.
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