Goodbye to the Right to Buy

I welcome the SNP's proposals to end the Right to Buy for new tennants in the social housing sector. Introduced by the Margaret Thatcher's Tory government the Right to Buy was a popular policy in its time but has led to major shortages of affordable social housing in recent years as all of the decent stock has been sold off.

Building sustainable communities means providing equitable access to affordable houses for families and individuals and its time that we removed the negative impact of the Right to Buy from the equation. Whilst the SNP deserve the credit for introducing the necessary legislation now, I am pretty sure its something Scottish Labour would also have done, were it still in power. Labour should back the SNP proposals.

What is also needed, however, is a decent level of funding for Local Authorities and Social Landlords to build more affordable homes. I hope the SNP will think again about the cuts they have proposed to Housing Action Grant and other programmes.