Cameron’s mortgage policy
Allowing council tenants to buy their homes helped to win the Conservatives the 1979 election and created millions of new Tory voters. So I was not surprised that David Cameron has announced that “millions of people would be able to own their homes” through a new policy of converting their rents, including housing benefit, into mortgage repayments. “In this way we can create a whole new generation of home owners,” Mr Cameron said. “Millions of people would be able to pass property on to future generations.”
“Rents into mortgages” sounds strangely familiar. In October 1993, a Rents into Mortgages scheme was launched by John Major’s housing minister, Sir George Young, who said it could benefit 1.4 million tenants. It was abandoned two years later, having attracted fewer than 1,000 tenants. The figures didn’t work.
Since then, house prices have trebled in many parts of the country, while social rents have only kept up with inflation. And right-to-buy discounts have been slashed. So how can what didn’t work then work now? The Devil, as they say, is in the detail, which has not yet been announced. But if David Cameron can square this particular circle he will deserve to reap the electoral benefits — and the Nobel prize for economics.