Gove claims that all homes in the housing association sold under a new right-of-purchase scheme will be replaced
Michael Gove, the level secretary, has given interviews this morning on the housing plans announced by Boris Johnson in the subsequent speech. These are some of the key points he made.
- Gove said that under the right to purchase plans for tenants of housing associations, all homes sold would be replaced. “One of the things we’re going to do is make sure there’s a replacement, a similar substitute, one by one,” he said. When asked by ITV’s Good Morning Britain how quickly the homes being sold would be replaced, he replied, “Instantly.”
- He said there would be a limit to the number of homes that could be sold under this right-of-purchase scheme. Asked what the limit would be, he replied: “This is something I will discuss with housing associations.”
- He rejected allegations that it was an old policy, because it had been in the Conservative Manifesto of 2015. He said that because the policy had been tested in the Midlands, the government was in a position to deploy it in full. the country.
- He said the government will review the way the mortgage market works as a whole. He hinted that this could lead to people being able to get a mortgage with smaller deposits.
- He said the government was looking into creating a new savings vehicle to allow people claiming a housing benefit to save for a deposit. This is necessary because under the current system, if people have savings of more than £ 16,000, they cannot qualify for resource-based benefits.
- He declined to see how many people could benefit from the proposal to allow claimants to use home benefit payments to pay their mortgages. It was an “important number,” he said. But when Julia Hartley-Brewer put pressure on Talk TV, Gove admitted that she did not know how many people would benefit. Finally, he claimed it was a “silly question.”
The government plans to allow low-wage earners to use housing benefits to pay off mortgages.
Julia asks Secretary of Housing Michael Gove SEVEN times, “How many people will this policy affect?”
Mr Gove: “A significant number … I don’t know”
“It’s a silly question.” @ JuliaHB1 | @michaelgove pic.twitter.com/X4SoHAzhKO
– TalkTV (@TalkTV) June 9, 2022
Labor MP Lisa Nandy supports rail strikes if government talks fail
Lisa Nandy, the leveling secretary, has become the first Labor leader to break ranks and say publicly that she supports the railway workers’ strikes in the coming weeks if ministers do not address their concerns. My partner Jamie Grierson has the story here.
Smoking should increase by one year each year until no one can buy cigarettes, proposes independent government review
The government has just published its independent review of smoking policy. It was carried out by Javed Khan, the former CEO of Barnardo’s, and yesterday my colleague Jessica Elgot revealed that she would propose raising the legal smoking age to 21 years.
In fact, the review goes even further. It recommends raising the age at which people can buy tobacco one year each year, until no one can buy cigarettes. Here is the key recommendation:
The government needs to stop young people from starting smoking, so I recommend raising the selling age from 18, one year, every year until no one can buy a tobacco product in that country.
This is a policy that has already been adopted in New Zealand. And that’s what the report says.
Never quitting is much easier than having to quit. This recommendation will lead to a new smoke-free generation, where young people under a certain age are legally barred from buying tobacco products, including cigarettes, for the rest of their lives.
While other recommendations will help us get to smoke-free 2030, this is about the long-term impact of making smoking obsolete.
New Zealand, which bans all tobacco sales to anyone born after 2008, estimates that it could halve smoking rates within 10 to 15 years of implementation, leading to effective law enforcement. .
The Honorable Ayesha Verrall, Associate Health Minister of New Zealand, said in a speech at the launch of the Smokefree 2025 Action Plan on December 9, 2021: “We want to make sure that young people never start smoking , so we are legislating a smoke-free generation … they are getting older, they and future generations will never be able to buy tobacco legally, because the truth is that there is no safe age to start smoking ”.
Today’s smokers will not be banned from addiction, but over time this action will help protect millions of children and young people from addiction. It will create a future society where smoking is no longer in demand or even relevant, as the legal selling age for smoking tobacco increases and future generations avoid becoming addicted to this deadly and costly practice.
Here is a summary of the report. And here is the full document.
Boris Johnson will surely be asked during the questions and answers after his speech later. As an instinctive libertarian, it is very difficult to see him supporting this proposal. He is one of those Tories who instinctively believes that banning things is not conservative.
Updated at 09.48 BST
Labor says some of Boris Johnson’s plans will make the housing supply crisis “even worse”
Good morning. Since winning his censure vote on Monday, Boris Johnson has been determined to show that he has left Partygate behind and is now fully focused on meeting his political agenda and will demonstrate this today by doing what is described as a keynote speech. . It will cover housing, but also the cost of living and the economy in general.
But in the past, Johnson’s keynote speeches have not always gone particularly well (his rise last year was seen as a failure) and the day-to-day preview of today’s is not. it is very inspiring. “The Prime Minister will tell the British public that he is firmly on his side as he reaffirms his commitment to support them during this difficult period,” the first sentence of the press release reads. Since the prime minister is unlikely to tell the public that he is not firmly on his side, this does not count as news.
The statement said Johnson will address the housing without giving details of what he will propose. However, another briefing before the speech revealed at least two policies it will set out: extending the right to purchase to tenants of housing associations (a policy the Tories have been promising since 2015, when it appeared in the party’s manifesto) ; and allow benefit claimants to use home benefit payments to pay off mortgages.
In her first edition briefing, my colleague Archie Bland looks at the right-to-buy proposal in detail and notes that experts are skeptical about its value. Archie’s article is here.
And Robert Booth has looked at what happened when this policy was tested in the Midlands in 2018. Many of the homes that were sold were not replaced.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow level secretary, has been giving interviews this morning and, referring to the concern that the right to buy will decrease the stock of affordable housing so that the houses being sold are not replaced, she stated that the prime minister’s plans could make the housing supply crisis even worse. She told Sky News:
We should take more steps to increase the supply of affordable housing.
In the end, it is the only way to really solve the housing crisis for most people.
The measures announced by the government today will not start for most people, and in fact some of them will make the housing supply crisis even worse.
I will soon post more information about what she and Michael Gove, the rising secretary, have been saying in their morning interviews.
Here is the agenda of the day.
10 a.m .: Lord Pickles, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Company Appointments, testifies before the Commons Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs.
11 a.m .: Katharine Birbalsingh, Chair of the Social Mobility Committee, gives a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank.
Lunchtime: Boris Johnson gives a talk on housing and the cost of living in Lancashire.
And Keir Starmer is visiting Dublin and Belfast for meetings to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol, including one with the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin.
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Updated at 10.09 BST