Right to Buy Scheme
Communities and Local Government

Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how much his Department has spent on promotional material for the Right to Buy scheme since May 2010.

Grant Shapps (Minister of State (Housing and Local Government), Communities and Local Government; Welwyn Hatfield, Conservative)

I am committed to ensuring tenants have full information about the Right to Buy so they can make an informed decision as to whether it is the right choice for them, especially since the reinvigoration of Right to Buy in April 2012 increased the maximum discount to £75,000.

Since May 2010 we have spent £106,761.96, excluding VAT, on materials to inform eligible tenants about their rights to the right to buy scheme. These include Right to Buy application forms and booklets for tenants, posters and other materials for local authorities to use to inform tenants about the new discounts, and advertisements in social housing newsletters about the changes. It also includes the new Right to Buy page on Facebook and Google adwords directing tenants to the Direct.Gov content on Right to Buy which has been viewed around 170,000 times and from which the Right to Buy booklet and forms have been downloaded several thousand times.

To place this targeted spending in context, the Department under the last Administration spent £6.3 million just on TV, radio and press advertising in 2008-09 and £4.4 million in 2009-10.