Promises Conveniently Forgotten Number 1; Tackling Right to Buy

The purpose of this series is not to support or challenge the policies that the mayor has reneged on, it is simply to remind readers that there were significant promises made to the electorate that have been ditched once she got into office.

Right to Buy has been a fact of council life since the Thatcher years. It has been popular with tenants who have gained access to capital at reduced rates. It has been less popular with councils, particularly on the left, because it reduces the amount of social housing available for rent.

This was the pledge made by Rokhsana Fiaz in her bid to become Labour’s mayoral candidate.

As a pledge it's pretty feeble. It doesn’t actually bind her to doing anything in Newham. She promises to scrutinise (sorry, “rigorously scrutinise”) and to campaign.

We must have had our attention diverted elsewhere at the time because we must confess that we completely missed the campaign to end Right to Buy. The street protests, the motions in council, the lobbies of parliament, the articles in journals all went by without our noticing any of it.

At least, we think that we missed it. It is always possible that none of this happened and that the mayor never had any intention of pursuing the issue once she had got into office.

The most important part of the pledge is to “rigorously scrutinise” right-to-buy applications. Again, we are not convinced by this. It implies something more than was required as part of the normal process. We’re pretty sure that there isn’t anything.

Here are the figures for sales under Right to Buy for the last five years.

We have assumed that Covid was responsible for the dip in 2020-21. Otherwise, the number of council house sales is continuing in quite a healthy manner and the number is clearly climbing again.

So, we’re calling out the mayor. What does your “rigorous scrutiny” consist of? And where is the campaign?