My Lords, we are having a very productive debate on this issue, and many other aspects of the housing problem that we face. The noble Lord, Lord Best, made the point just now that selling off high-value assets when they become vacant is not necessarily a bad thing, and indeed can be a very good thing in certain circumstances. I see him nodding and take that as assent. Because he is a long-time student of these matters, he will recall that the origin of this proposal to sell off high-value council properties was in a pamphlet produced by Policy Exchange in 2012. That was produced when those interested in housing were saying, “No government money is available in this economic situation. Therefore, we have to think of some other way to release assets which will fund more housing”. That thorough, well-worked document suggested that 20% of social housing nationwide was perhaps expensive and could be sold off. The figures in the document showed that no less than £159 billion-worth of assets could be released, and then be spent on new social housing. I emphasise “new social housing” because, as I understand the original document, it was talking about selling off expensive social housing to provide new social housing to rent or to buy. That means housing in the public sector, not private housing.
The situation changed when this idea, which was a productive one, was linked to how the right-to-buy idea would be funded. This is the link that many people are concerned about, and which has provoked so much debate. The problem here, as my intervention on the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, alluded to, is that the manifesto commits us to extending the right to buy, which is already extant from previous council housing right-to-buy measures. There is a presumption that it would be the same. However, I agree with him that we are now in a different era: we are 30 years on
from when the original right-to-buy procedure under Mrs Thatcher was introduced. The sums are much higher. I certainly agree with him, as a Keynesian economist—and certainly given my own political background—that changing facts can change your views. I could hardly disagree with that: it is a fundamental point of view. Therefore, the Government should think very hard about this point, because the fact is, as he said in his speech, the costs are huge if you are talking about a cash discount on the same basis as occurred under Mrs Thatcher’s famous right-to-buy proposals. As I understand it from what he was saying—others might go down the same path—we might want to have a mixed package which could involve some equity loan as well as cash. That is to be decided. It is one way in which the Government could maintain their manifesto commitment and not necessarily disappoint those who were hoping to get a reasonable deal out of the right to buy.
This is an area where the Government should think most carefully about what they are doing, and where the debate has contributed to their thinking. I sometimes think it might have been better if the Government had started off this Bill here, rather than in the other place, because in many ways we actually have more expertise on this subject, given that, these days, the number of people with a local government background—on both sides of the House and on the Cross Benches—is larger here than in the other place.