Britons ‘to be priority on council house lists’

What council houses?

Well who else would be priority? Americans? Italians? Can’t see a problem.

Brits to be a priority over anyone who has recently entered the country.

As it stands now, people with children who are technically homeless get first priority regardless if they've been in the country just a short time.. and never paid a penny taxes..

People who were born and lived in this country all their lives, and have to live in expensive rented properties.. or emergency accommodation and or have been on the waiting list for mny years are not priority

This law if passed will change that.. and not before time..

I do hope it is workable

nanna8

Well who else would be priority? Americans? Italians? Can’t see a problem.

Those who have recently entered the country.

As someone said - what council houses? The council houses that tenants were allowed to buy (including my sister in law) have not been replaced.

Ailsa43

Brits to be a priority over anyone who has recently entered the country.

As it stands now, people with children who are technically homeless get first priority regardless if they've been in the country just a short time.. and never paid a penny taxes..

People who were born and lived in this country all their lives, and have to live in expensive rented properties.. or emergency accommodation and or have been on the waiting list for mny years are not priority

This law if passed will change that.. and not before time..

Totally agree.

What council houses, and whom should they be for if not Britons? Perhaps a penguin colony somewhere might be good.

I know this was one of the reasons some in South Wales voted for Brexit. About 15 years ago a load of ex-council houses that were (I believe) deemed unfit for anyone to live in were completely refurbed for Polish immigrants in one town. Locals who had been waiting years weren't allowed them. In a town with massive unemployment and no cheap housing it was a bit of a kick in the teeth for residents and caused a lot of bad feeling.

This is simply vote mongering. The real issue (and scandal) is there are not enough Council houses available even if they were restricted to persons of British nationality. The Tories have failed to resource local authorities to build them. Another Tory failure.

Racist propaganda from the right wing, IMO.. Slyly put, as the vast majority of social housing is housing associations etc. not council houses.

For me it’s both undesirable and unworkable

My understanding is that people get points, those with most points I’d greatest needs, get priority for social housing. If you’ve been given asylum after fleeing death in wars in your country of origin, i expect your scores on the points system will be high.
I can’t find it my heart or feet on the floor mode to feel that’s wrong
What is wrong is Thatcher ‘s government selling off council houses whilst not allowing councils to use the revenue raised to build much needed social housing
The cost of rent/mortgages is increasingly beyond the capacity of most to find somewhere to live.

Iam64

My understanding is that people get points, those with most points I’d greatest needs, get priority for social housing. If you’ve been given asylum after fleeing death in wars in your country of origin, i expect your scores on the points system will be high.
I can’t find it my heart or feet on the floor mode to feel that’s wrong
What is wrong is Thatcher ‘s government selling off council houses whilst not allowing councils to use the revenue raised to build much needed social housing
The cost of rent/mortgages is increasingly beyond the capacity of most to find somewhere to live.

This. Absolutely.

I agree. The sale of council houses was a national disgrace. It transferred public money to private hands in the same way as the sale of utilities did, and we've all seen how that turned out for energy prices.

I remember the days when council houses were good on the whole, and provided secure, cheap accommodation for those who couldn't afford or didn't want to buy. Now they are expensive to rent, often grim, and denied to many who need it in order to line the pockets of those who bought cheap and now rent out at huge profits.

There is an argument for selling council houses; if the tenant likes their home enough to consider buying it, then it is unlikely that they will be moving out, and the property won't be available until the person whose name is on the tenancy agreement dies. The sale proceeds should go toward building more homes, but whether this happens or not, there won't be more of the present housing stock available if families stay in a desirable home for a generation - and who could blame them?
Regarding the priority now being discussed, The Times today states that in 2021-22, 40% of new social housing in Brent was given to non UK citizens. That is a statistic likely to cause negative feeling.

Good! I hope they follow through with this, we do need more council houses but those up for grabs should always go to our own citizens first, many of them have been on waiting lists for a long time.

I disagree, Mrs Nemo. If a tenant wants to own a properly they can buy on the open market and leave the council house to someone who needs it. It's too late now though, as it's unlikely that we will ever get back to having the level of secure housing for all which existed before the great bribe that was the Right To Buy. Now we have generations of people struggling to find a home that can't be snatched from under them if the landlord wants to sell, and many are paying so much rent that they can't save to buy somewhere of their own.

Grantenow I think some of you are unaware that Housing is a devolved issue. One of the few things that I now agree with the Welsh Assembley is that a ban was put on the sale of Council Houses/Social Housing ( which seems to be the more prominent partner in Wales) a few years ago.
There is still a shortfall for family type housing. Our local authority seems to think the answer is to tear down old dilapidated shops and turn them into flats. Flats by their very nature attract single people. Only families can turn a space into a community in my opinion.

I can see no argument for allowing tenants to buy social housing. Thatcher had the idea everyone could be a house owner. What’s needed is more good quality social housing, affordable rents, secure tenancies.

The Elephant in the room is the lack of social housing in general, the roots of which actually go back to the Thatcher years with the massive sell-off of council houses with no attempt to provide any workable, affordable alternative on the rental market. Successive Governments of whatever political persuasion have consistently failed to grasp the nettle, and to properly fund and develop a credible social housing policy. As for this latest "initiative", I see it not only as little more than a shallow, right wing attempt at vote-catching, but also as simply unworkable in practical terms.

Given that Labour in general have always been so critical of Right to Buy, I do wonder why they didn’t repeal that law during their 13 years in power.

And it was Gordon Brown who helped to fuel the massive rise in buy to let - partly because of his raid on pension funds, which reduced people’s faith in them and induced them to turn to a ‘solid’ investment, and partly because he abolished mortgage interest relief for owner occupiers, while retaining it for landlords. Which was grossly unfair. I can only assume that Labour thought a huge rise in private rentals would absolve any govt. from the need to provide more social housing.

To be entirely fair, this was all before house prices (and rental costs) started soaring into the stratosphere.

I think social housing should mainly be for people who cannot work and earn sufficiently to survive for whatever reason. I don’t think it should be for anyone just wanting a cheap rent. In the old days a lot of people used to run very expensive cars because they were in subsidised housing and I think that is wrong. There are very few housing commission houses here, you have to be really,really on your uppers to get one.

I don’t know if things have changed, but it seemed wrong to me if a single person stayed in a three bedroomed council house when it could be utilised by a family.

I know the bedroom tax caused a lot of controversy, but it still seemed wasteful to have vacant space if tenants lived in subsidised property.

Dodging the issue we need more housing especially social housing and whipping up prejudice.

We have a massive housing problem interest rates and rent prices are becoming unaffordable, what are they doing about building more houses and flats except the more expensive ones?