PM vowing to boost ‘right to buy’

2 October 2011 Last updated at 01:00 ET

David Cameron says the coalition hopes to boost economic growth by relaxing planning laws

David Cameron is to pledge to boost the “right to buy” scheme established by ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

He will announce proposals to increase discounts offered to tenants in England who want to buy their council house.

The original scheme was criticised for cutting the stock of social housing but the PM, who is in Manchester for the Tory conference, will say a new home should be built for every one sold.

The changes are expected to be included in a housing strategy later this year.

Market rent

Right to buy became an landmark housing policy for Baroness Thatcher’s Conservative government in the 1980s.

BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins says it was heralded by the Tories as the foundation of a revolution in social mobility – and derided by its detractors as a drain on much needed social housing.

Labour never scrapped it but did cut the discounts offered to would-be home owners, which in turn reduced the number of sales. Mr Cameron is proposing to increase those discounts.

The government’s aim is to build one new home – to be let at up to 80% of the market rent – for each property sold.

Brownfield s

The Conservatives hope to rekindle the support for the original scheme, increase housebuilding and generate new jobs.

The policy, which could affect up to 2.3 million families in England, is understood to have been approved by senior Liberal Democrats.

But some among the Conservatives’ coalition partners may doubt the government’s ability to replace sold properties and be reluctant to associate themselves with one of Baroness Thatcher’s most famous policies, says our correspondent.

Mr Cameron has also announced plans for the government to release thousands of acres of publicly owned brownfield land for housebuilding.

In an interview in the Sunday Times, he said: “The government owns huge amounts of land, mostly brownfield s, previously developed, either out of use or being run down in some way.

“There’s an enormous opportunity to build homes on those s.”

Under the plan, which aides said could support 200,000 jobs, developers would be able to pay for the land after building and selling properties on it – by-passing the need for developers to find money up front.

‘Sustainable development’

And Mr Cameron said that the coalition’s controversial plans to change planning laws were needed to boost economic growth. “The planning system needs reform, it really does,” he said.

“When have guidance that runs to thousands of pages it just become an enormous regulatory quagmire.

“It’s also completely untrusting of local authorities. It’s almost saying: ‘Those idiots in town halls can’t make decisions.’ I think that’s wrong.”

The plans, which include a new “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, have been criticised by groups including the National Trust who fear they will extend urban sprawl in England.

However, Mr Cameron said much that had been written about the plans had been “really quite misleading” and insisted that he was “an absolute lover of the British countryside”.

The announcements come after Mr Cameron was criticised for not doing enough to promote economic growth by the Tory chairman of the Commons Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie.

Economic issues are expected to take centre stage at the conference – as was the case for Labour and the Liberal Democrats – and Mr Cameron, who will close the conference when he speaks on Wednesday, has insisted the government has an “incredibly active” growth strategy.

Foreign Secretary William Hague will be among the speakers on the conference’s opening day on Sunday.

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