Get a job and win a free house

The Tories are flagging up plans to give free houses to people who come off benefits and stay in work for a year. They are also considering forcing housing association charities to sell up to two million homes to tenants under a new Right to Buy scheme.

The new plans have been flagged up in a number of Tory sympathising newspapers and may be included in the Tory manifesto. It will be seen as a sop to the Party’s right wing who have been demanding a radical shift to the right.

The plans centre on those already in council or social housing and on out of work benefits. If they get a job and keep it for a year, the plans floated suggest they will be given the house free of charge. The plans also included extending the existing Right to Buy to over two million tenants of housing associations, charitable bodies set up to provide social housing.

”Genuinely stupid”

The proposals have caused uproar and have been condemned the National Housing Association as “genuinely stupid” and “bonkers”.  The Tories have made eyebrow raising claims that the cost of the free homes and discounts will have little impact on public finances.

The Tories have already been boosting the Right to Buy scheme introduced in 1980 under Margaret Thatcher by increasing the discounts to more than ÂŁ100,000. The original Thatcher scheme saw over 1.5m council homes sold to tenants at a discount, with a third of them now belonging to private landlords.

Steve Turner, Unite assistant general secretary said the current proposals, made at the time of a crisis in social housing were “a nonsense, failed to understand the fundamental issues facing ‘generation rent’ and those forced into private sector bed and breakfast accommodation. They were yet another ideological attack on social housing and an example of just how far the Tories were lurching to the right”.

“We have a housing crisis with 1.7m people on waiting lists for council and social housing.  It’s nonsense to think you can address that by giving away or selling off the housing stock you do have.

“This is nothing to do with helping people get off benefits and into decent work. It’s a desperate smokescreen for another attack on council and social housing to bolster the Tory manifesto and buy off the Tory right wing”.

“Thatcher’s Right to Buy is a 30 year old failure in housing policy and we’re still living with the legacy. Over 1.5m council homes were sold off at a discount, many ending up in the hands of corporations, hedge funds and private investors, making huge profits on the back of misery.

“The consequences of a total collapse in the numbers council houses being built are still being felt today and for the Tories to now turn their attention to forcing housing associations to sell off homes we will see what is already a crisis go into free fall.

“This, coupled with Tory plans to bring public spending down to levels last seen in the 1930s is just another example of the Tories lurching further and further to the right as we approach the general election,” said Steve.