The right to buy should be replaced by "the right to invest", the Liberal Democrat party has said.
The proposal, outlined on Tuesday at the party's conference in Brighton, would allow council and housing association tenants to buy an equity stake in their homes but mean the homes do not leave the social housing sector.

Ed Davey MP, the party's spokesman on local government, said: "With 'right to invest', the tenant shares in the rising value of the social landlord's property.

"In the immediate future, it would mean little change for the tenant, it would be an investment, but it has the potential of unlocking a whole new source of private funding for the social landlord."

The idea was first proposed by the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank in July last year. Labour pledged to look into it in its manifesto (HT 18 July, page 28).

But the Liberal Democrats are planning their own "blue skies" review of housing.

Richard Kemp, the party's spokesman at the Local Government Association, said: "We are starting a policy group, which I will chair, to look at everything concerned with housing. By March 2005, the last conference before the general election, we want to come out with a comprehensive housing policy."

Other proposals made at the conference included raising council tax on second homes to 200%.

In a separate debate, the party launched a national petition to abolish council tax altogether.

Source

Housing Today