Sacred cows, rational debates and the politics of the right to buy after devolution

Abstract

The introduction of policy instruments such as the Right to Buy (RTB) led to prophecies of the demise of the welfare state in Western Europe. Yet it is increasingly apparent that a welfare state will survive, albeit in a restructured form. This paper examines the place of RTB in the restructuring of social rented housing in the UK and accounts for recent changes to it. A new politics of RTB has arisen from the restructuring of social housing. As the politics of welfare shifted its focus from the scale of welfare provision to reorganising, adjusting and ‘modernising’ what remained, RTB came into question. This, along with political devolution, has created a new set of conditions that have called RTB into question in different parts of the UK while paradoxically it continues to be widely perceived as inviolable. RTB now occupies an ambiguous and slightly troublesome position as a feature of a residualised social rented sector that is more secure in its role of meeting social needs, as well as being seen to provide a route to owner occupation.

Keywords:

• social rented housing
• Right to Buy
• welfare restructuring
• devolution

Notes

In the paper, the term ‘social rented housing’ is used to describe housing let on a non‐profit basis by landlords such as local authorities and housing associations. ‘Public housing’ is used to describe housing owned by public sector agencies, principally municipalities. ‘RTB’ is used to describe the schemes introduced from 1980 that generally provide sitting tenants in the public sector and some tenants in the housing association sector with a Right to Buy their home on certain conditions.