Gove confirms plans to let people use housing benefit to buy homes

theguardian.com:

Plans to help lower-paid workers use housing benefit cash to buy a home will be announced later on Thursday so that more people can fulfil “an important desire of the human heart”, Michael Gove has said.

The levelling up secretary said the measure, as well as a relaunch of the right to buy scheme, would encourage more people to purchase their own property.

Both policies will be formally unveiled by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, at a speech in Blackpool on Thursday, as he seeks to move attention away from an embarrassing confidence vote result in which 41% of Tory MPs tried to oust him.

But Labour has said the plans will “make the housing crisis worse” by fuelling further demand without properly addressing supply shortfalls and will not help the poorest.

Gove confirmed reports that Johnson would let benefit claimants who receive housing benefit payments to “use that income in order to get on to the property ladder” in obtaining and sustaining mortgages.

The right to buy scheme, first launched by Margaret Thatcher, will also be extended following a pilot in the West Midlands, Gove confirmed.

Given it was also touted by another previous Tory leader, David Cameron, in 2015, Gove admitted it was “an extension of policy that we already have”.

However, the cabinet minister told Sky News that not everyone eligible would be able to use the scheme. He cautioned that “we will cap the number of people who will be able to benefit from this initially and then it will grow over time”.

In his speech later, Johnson is expected to say that he wants renters to be given the chance to buy properties they let from housing associations at discounts of up to 70% — depending on how long they have lived in them.

Despite mounting calls from senior