The Right to Buy

The troubles that surrounded the Welsh Government's attempt to secure the right to legislate on housing—and specifically to suspend the right to buy in some areas—are still fresh in our memory ... and the matter still has not been sorted out, even after more than two years of trying. So I thought it would be encouraging to draw attention to what is currently happening in Scotland.

Today the Scottish Government laid out their proposals for a new Housing Bill. As well as establishing a Scottish Housing Regulator and Charter for Social Housing, it will end the right to buy for new tenants of council housing, housing associations and new-build social housing.

     Details are here and here.

Of course it remains to be seem whether the bill will make its way through the Scottish Parliament to become law (although it almost certainly will, because it is backed by both the SNP and Scottish LibDems) but nobody in either Scotland or the remainder of the UK is seriously questioning that this is a matter that the Scots are quite competent to decide for themselves.

Labour and the Tories are dead set against the policy, but neither of them would even dream of opposing this Bill by claiming that the Scottish Parliament shouldn't have the authority to decide these things. So why should it be such a huge problem for the people of Wales to decide how to regulate and improve housing in Wales?

Ask Peter Hain and his fellow Labour MPs. It's one more illustration of how wide the gulf between Labour's AMs and MPs has become ... and one more reason why so many Labour MPs are going to lose their seats in the general election in May.