Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby, Labour)

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what proportion of right to buy receipts were (a) paid to his Department and (b) retained by councils in each year since 1997; and how much of the total revenue was spent on housing.

Yvette Cooper (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Pontefract & Castleford, Labour)

The following table shows total capital receipts from right-to-buy sales of local authority dwellings in England in the years 1997–98 onwards. The figures are net of discount and are as reported by local authorities.

The table also shows the value of housing capital receipts set-aside by local authorities to repay debt. Until the introduction of the pooling regime in 2004–05, set-aside was the mechanism that allowed a proportion of housing capital receipts to be redistributed for investment elsewhere.

As can be seen from the following table, since 1997 the Government have consistently invested more in housing than they have received in receipts. In 2004–05 the amount paid to Government from all housing receipts (not just right to buy) was £1.7 billion. The amount invested in housing was £4.1 billion i.e. almost 2½ times the amount received in receipts. The ratio is expected to increase substantially in the future.

⁽¹⁴⁾Estimated pooled housing capital receipts.

⁽¹⁵⁾Programmed expenditure.

Note:

Pooling replaced set-aside as the mechanism to invest housing capital receipts in 2004–05.