Gove confirms plans to let people use housing benefit to buy homes
Plans to help lower-paid workers use housing benefit cash to buy homes will be announced later on Thursday so that more people can fulfil “an important desire of the human heart”, Michael Gove has said.
The levelling up secretary said relaunching the right-to-buy scheme would also encourage more people to purchase their own property, but was criticised for previewing a “dangerous gimmick” and told to “stop wasting time on the failed policies of the past”.
Boris Johnson will formally unveil both measures at a speech in Blackpool on Thursday, as he seeks to move attention away from an embarrassing confidence vote result in which 41% of Tory MPs tried to oust him.
Labour has said the plans will “make the housing crisis worse” by fuelling further demand without properly addressing supply shortfalls and will not help the poorest.
Gove confirmed reports that Johnson would let benefits claimants who receive housing benefit payments to “use that income in order to get on to the property ladder” in obtaining and sustaining mortgages.
The right-to-buy scheme, first launched by Margaret Thatcher, would also be extended following a pilot in the West Midlands, Gove confirmed. Given it was also touted by another previous Tory leader, David Cameron, in 2015, Gove admitted it was “an extension of policy that we already have”.
However, the cabinet minister told Sky News not everyone eligible would be able to use the scheme. He cautioned that “we will cap the number of people who will be able to benefit from this initially and then it will grow over time”.
In his speech later, Johnson is expected to say that he wants renters to be given the chance to buy properties they let from housing associations at discounts of up to 70% – depending on how long they have lived in them.
Despite mounting calls from senior Conservatives for the government to bring forward tax cuts given unhappiness at the prime minister and chancellor’s approach to tackling the cost of living crisis, Johnson is only likely to make vague commitments to reducing the tax burden at an unspecified point closer to the next election.
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